Rick went out for a walk on Sunday, pacing a quiet stretch of the Appalachian Trail in the Poconos near an overlook called Totts Gap. With a backpack and Nikon binoculars strapped to his chest, he was hoping to spot some turkey vultures or, if luck broke his way, a bald eagle.
Instead, Rick spotted something that wasn’t on his birding checklist: a small army of Lafayette College students. They marched up the hill loaded like pack mules, carting aluminum trays of stuffing, sloshing jugs of apple cider, bags of vegetables, a stock pot full of mashed potatoes and more.
Strange as it looked, Rick had seen it before.
It was 2021 when he accidentally wandered into his first LOStgiving, the Thanksgiving-adjacent pilgrimage hosted annually by the Lafayette Outdoors Society, known better by its slightly fudged acronym “LOSt.”
The club’s members have spent a November night each year since 2014 cooking a feast fit for a small village, and then lugging the spread up a nearby mountain in their finest formalwear the next morning.
“This is why I’m here at college, to do these silly things,” LOSt President Rose Reohr ‘26 said. Reohr, who was forced to miss this year’s event due to an illness, has been part of the festivities for three years.
“It’s not like, ‘Let’s all get dinner at Upper,’” she said. “No, let’s prepare this feast and hike up a random mountain.”
Totts Gap has bore witness to LOStgiving events for several years running, though previous years saw a much longer and laborious route up. The inaugural LOStgiving was held 20 miles north on the New Jersey side of the Delaware Water Gap, the table set up on the lip of a 200-foot cliff drop called “Corkscrew,” according to Eric Giovannetti ‘15, the club’s social chair at the time.
The venue isn’t quite as daunting these days, which the current executive board says is the point. LOSt Vice President Avery Sichel ‘26 emphasized balancing doing the “coolest or craziest thing” with meeting members where they are.
experience, try making Avery
Sichel’s mom’s mac and cheese at
home. (Recipe courtesy of Avery Sichel ’26)
“If the whole school wants to come, the whole school can come,” Reohr said. “It’s really about giving and sharing our love for the outdoors, and doing silly, fun stuff.”
Roughly 40 people made their way up to the scenic outlook on Sunday. A folding table set up in the middle of the clearing was heavy with goods: a Coleman camp stove, three trays of mac and cheese, stuffing, rotisserie chicken, Hawaiian rolls, French toast casserole, seven jars of Heinz turkey gravy and six cans of cranberry sauce.
Ration planning is always a gamble; Sichel called the previous night’s cooking a “logistical feat.”
“It was just ‘Cook ‘til you drop,’” he said. “We had like seven hours of cooking happen on Saturday night.”
The group commandeered kitchens in four houses. Sichel churned out mashed potatoes and mac and cheese, the latter a recipe from his mom that he grew up eating. Last year’s batch of mac and cheese was so massive that trays were distributed across campus after the event via Leopard Leftovers. It took Sichel until April to finish the leftovers in his freezer after last year’s feast.
“This year we had some serious time dedicated to the mac math,” he said. “Spreadsheets were made, numbers were run.”
Even so, two untouched trays made the return trip down the mountain.
Rick — who happily paused his birding for a plate — expressed his pleasure at seeing “the youths in the outdoors.” He also raved about the choice of music, played over a small Bose speaker.
“I’m gonna start dancing pretty soon, and that’s something you don’t want,” said Rick, who didn’t give his last name, as Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” began to play. With an assist from a LOSt member, he was able to identify a bald eagle in the distance.
It started to snow around noon. The hikers, sprawled out on tarps and camping chairs, began to cheer.
“It’s a LOStgiving miracle,” exclaimed Ellie Spencer ‘26, a first-timer at the event.
A correction was made on Nov. 21, 2025: A previous version of this article misstated the class year of Avery Sichel ’26.
