Wisconsin Hoofers

[1] The Wisconsin Hoofers was begun in 1920 by a group of Norwegian exchange students who built a ski jump on the UW-Madison campus by Lake Mendota.

The name "hoofers" is similar to the term "heelers" used for the new members of the Dartmouth club and reportedly was designed to imply "getting there under your own power."

The Hoofer Sailing Club operates at Memorial Union in the basement of the Theater wing, on the south shoreline of Lake Mendota on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus.

Nearly 50 lessons were run daily with over 50 identical Tech Dinghies racing Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

It had been long-standing tradition that the club organize a 200+ person trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, during the university's spring break.

[15] Several annual campus events are organized by the club such as the Rail Jam freestyle competition at Union South and ski and snowboard movie premieres.

The club owns a piece of undeveloped property referred to as "Hooferland" in the town of Silver Cliff, which is near Lakewood, WI, which it uses to stage various weekend trips throughout the year.

The Outing Club was instrumental in developing the sport of whitewater paddling in Wisconsin in the 1960s, as it owned molds to build boats in its shop facilities in the basement of the Memorial Union.

In the late 1970s, club member Gordy Sussman started a small outfit in his rental house near campus to make group purchases of paddles, and other equipment, to get discounts and save on shipping costs.