Thirty-two years ago, Williams Outing Club (WOC) Director Scott Lewis’s first Mountain Day looked very different from the all-campus, spontaneous wilderness extravaganza that took place last Friday. When Lewis became director of WOC in 1992, Mountain Day was held on a Saturday, and it was not a surprise to the student body.
This week, after the last Mountain Day before his retirement at the end of the 2023-24 academic year, Lewis shared memories from Mountain Days over the years with the Record.
“My first nine were always on a day that we’d plan a week in advance,” he said. Once Lewis and his co-organizers had chosen a sunny October Saturday to lead Mountain Day hikes, they’d publicize the event to students — though not to great success.
“It wasn’t that popular,” Lewis remembered of the 1992 Mountain Day. “Maybe 50 people or so would go.”
In 1993, Lewis’s second year on the job, the College hoped to organize a more momentous Mountain Day in honor of its bicentennial. That year, Lewis and his team bussed roughly 200 students to the top of Stony Ledge, a stunning overlook in the Hopper Valley, where WOC now leads hikes every Mountain Day from various trailheads.
Mountain Day continued to change with Lewis at the helm. In 2001, Lewis said, Professor of Biology Heather Williams raised the idea of a surprise Mountain Day to Lewis, inspired by a similar tradition at Bowdoin, where she had previously taught. Getting the idea approved by faculty required some persuading, Lewis said, but eventually, a surprise Mountain Day was given the green light for a three-year trial period.
After the trial, Lewis spoke before the College faculty to make a case for the surprise Mountain Day system to become permanent. He acknowledged that surprise Mountain Days are difficult on some College staff, such as Dining Services, but said its benefits were vast.
“That probably doesn’t outweigh how important it is to recognize a timeout,” Lewis said. “It was pretty easy to defend and see how wonderful those Fridays were.” By only a slim margin, the faculty voted to make Mountain Day — held on a surprise Friday in October — permanent.
But the official approval of Mountain Day included a caveat: If there was bad weather during the first three Fridays in October, there would be no Mountain Day, and October’s day off from classes would get tacked onto Reading Period.
In 2009, the first Friday of October was terribly rainy. “Easy call,” Lewis said. The second Friday? Also rain. “Easy call,” Lewis said, again. The call was harder leading up to the third Friday, which had a weather forecast of snow showers.
At first, Lewis planned to have no Mountain Day that year, but after protest from the student body and College administration, he scrambled to put together a modified outdoors schedule.
“It was called Siberian Mountain Day,” he said. Siberian Mountain Day forewent hikes on Mt. Greylock in favor of an easier and more weather-friendly walk up Stone Hill, an afternoon Lewis described as a “Mountain Day miracle.”
“Almost the whole school walked to Stone Hill,” he said. “And if you looked to the east, it was cloudy. You looked to the south, it was cloudy. And then, over Williamstown, there was this hole of blue sky… I’ll never forget it.”
Lewis said he believes the Siberian Mountain Day of 2009 is an example of the magic of Mountain Day. “I still believe that it should only happen on a good day,” he said. Sometimes, that requires WOC to make last-minute adjustments. Last year, for example, Lewis had to modify the morning schedule for Mountain Day after a 10 p.m. phone call from President of the College Maud S. Mandel the night before, which informed him of an updated rain forecast, Lewis said.
Lewis relies on weather reports from a former student and current meteorology doctoral candidate Will Downs ’19, who faithfully sends him forecasts every week in October.
Despite the difficulties, Lewis said that he thinks it’s important for Mountain Day to remain a surprise. “It gives a little anticipation and adds to the thrill of it,” he said.
He also thinks it’s essential that no students can plan to do schoolwork on Mountain Day, because they don’t know when it will happen. “It’s an important thing, even in all our busy lives, to have a sort of Sabbath,” he said.
Even though Lewis doubts he’ll be in Williamstown next October, he said he will carry that lesson and the spirit of Mountain Day with him. “It’s my favorite day, because it’s such a community day,” he said.
The College will miss an important part of its community next year, but Lewis is confident that the joy of the Mountain Day tradition will live on. Next year, Ben Oliver will take over Lewis’s role as WOC Director and leader of Mountain Day. “It’s in good hands,” Lewis said.
