The concept of a hiking club for Kingswood was born one afternoon in the early 2000s when Rob and Mr Wiff were sitting in innertubes in the lake during a quiet B-block. We noted to one another that interest in hiking had waned a bit of late and we wanted to generate some new excitement among the campers.

We thought back to the late 80s and early 90s when there were a bunch of guys who went on just about every big hike. Mr Wiff was trips planner back then and Kingswood seemed to do more 3-day trips than we do now, most likely because we had much less going on at camp in those days! We started calling our crew “the varsity hiking team.” Rob allowed as how he refused to miss a single hike of consequence, even at the expense of skipping things like sports events with other camps or even Egg Drop. Hikes took precedence.

As we floated along, Rob came up with the idea that we should have a display of all the hikes campers could take. “Boys are attracted to anything they can check off a list,” he insisted.  Mr Wiff devised the name “Varsity Club” and began envisioning a three-colored chart with easy, moderate and difficult distinctions. Soon therein, we had our “prerequisite” list of 14 mandatory items, to include campcraft orientation, flora and fauna recognition and some easier hikes in the near vicinity of camp.

It took a bit longer for us to come up with intermediate hikes, but soon we settled on those treks that are not too much further away from camp as Franconia Notch. “Let’s name that level of accomplishment after the Franconia range,” Rob suggested. Then, of course, the hardest and most further afoot mountains took on the name “Presidential.”

The original charts had mountains listed across and names down the side on nice-looking foamboard displays with green for Piermont, blue for Franconia and gold for Presidential. We left patches of stars of those colors and boys simply attached the stars to match their accomplishments.

In time, however, the charts began to look a bit grimy and we came up with the idea of a “Wheel,” which is laminated and very colorful. Instead of having the campers adding stars, we kept track of hikes at the administrative level and gave boys those attractive wheels to take home as a memory of all the hikes they had done. This plan was popular from the beginning.

One year a parent arrived to pick up his son and immediately asked for a Varsity Wheel. Seems he had gotten smitten with the list of peaks and hiked a few of them while his sons were at camp. Mrs. Wiff saw this report and commented, “It took 25 years, but I got into the Varsity Club.” Indeed, the Varsity Club is open to everybody in the Kingswood community.