Swarthmore College Outing Club records

The Swarthmore Outing Club is one of Swarthmore College's oldest student groups, still active and known as "The Outsiders" as of 2015. The club plans excursions, or funds excursions planned by interested students, to do activities such as hiking, climbing, backpacking, rafting, roller-skating, and more.

The first incarnation of the Outing Club may have been in 1932, when the Girls' Athletic Association inaugurated a club by that name that planned outings for female students. It was not long before the group became co-ed.

In 1959, members of the Swarthmore Outing Club began discussing forming a student group for spelunkers, or cave explorers. The club initiated a biannual newsletter publication, The Guácharo, in May of 1960. Membership increased over the next two years and the club gained official recognition from the National Speleological Society (NSS) as Swarthmore Grotto #98 in 1961. The new recognition and growing membership allowed the club to increase its number of spelunking trips to cover the Mid-Atlantic region, including Pennsylvania, New York, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Over time, members started to lose interest in paying the dues for NSS membership, feeling that the benefits of NSS membership did not justify the costs. The Grotto Club lost its NSS membership in 1968, and published the final edition of The Guácharo in the fall of 1965.