Ever since college, a lofty notion of perceived higher education, was invented by our very own Ari Worthman, all people talk about these days are ways to “game” the college admission system. Yet, nobody focuses on the far more important and deterministic game that is the Lakeside outdoor trip program. From getting to go with who you want, to even being accepted at all, today I will teach you all how to win at outdoor trips, and thus at life itself. 

Firstly, any outdoor trip is defined by the people who attend. In fact, it can be proven that the people who attend are the only thing that matter. Whether it be one broken bone or many, the result of an outdoor trip is merely a function of the attendees. Probability has no say if you believe hard enough.

Thus the most logical response is to “game the system” to fix those who would attend with you. Since the option of advisory outdoor trips exists, if you like your advisory, then suggest one of those. But what if you don’t like your advisory? What if everyone runs faster than you, and you will be the proverbial friend-to-leave-behind-to-be-eaten-by-a-bear? Fear not, for Lakeside has considered this. After all, Bernie switches advisories every four years, so students our age should be able to as well. And I know just the way. 

It’s actually deceptively simple. There’s no trick. Just go ask Bernie, and bring a box of chocolates. 

But what if you’ve diversified your portfolio and have exactly one friend in every advisory? No matter which advisory you switch to, you won’t be guaranteed a good time. Well, here’s where social media comes in handy.

It’s well known that the administration is anti-fun, and so they intentionally try to put friends on separate outdoor trips. However, as with all things in life, any educated, competent student with the right mindset can cheat his way to what they want. 

The first step is to get social media. If you don’t have any social media, that clearly implies you have no friends, so you won’t have to worry about any of this. Otherwise, go onto MySpace and get rid of your current top ten friends. It doesn’t matter if you hurt their feelings. Success is more important than friendship. 

Now create a new list of top ten enemies and put those ten friends onto that list. Make sure to announce this all publicly, via an “accidental” reply-all, so as to engage the Lakeside audience, and specifically the administration. They monitor all of your social media, taking notes on who gets invited to whose parties, modeling the whole Lakeside community with advanced algorithms written by Bill Gates when he attended, back in 1984. Once you put said friends on your enemies list, the algorithm will happily put your friends together with you on an outdoor trip. 

But with all this said and done, the most important question remains: how does one even get accepted into outdoor trips? To answer this enigma, we interviewed Lo’Gans Earl, a sophomore in the class of 2023. Despite only being at the Upper School for two years, he has already been on eight outdoor trips: Eastern Washington Backpacking, Deschutes River Rafting (twice), San Juan Kayaking, Track Walk Explorations, Coastal Littering, Mt. Vesuvius Mountaineering, and Grand Canyon Handstands with his Accelerated Physics class. How has he done this?

He attributes one main factor to his repeated success. In his time at Lakeside, he has mastered RNGM, or the Rigorous Non-Germaine Mathematics of Chance, also known as H/M421. Through two years of intense training, he has developed a mental connection with Lakeside’s own neural network, which some would even characterize as a friendship. Through this, he has an immense advantage when the “randomly selected” Outdoor Trips are assigned. 

When asked if he had any advice for prospective Outdoor Trippers, as students like him are colloquially referred to as, he had just one sentence: “Outdoor trips are like life, and you’ll never succeed if you don’t read this article.” 

Note: this article was mistakenly attributed to Edward Y. ’23 in the April print issue. The correct writer is, in fact, Gene Y. ’23.