Today, some 50 years after the first Puddle Jump, three of the event’s founders — Chris Callahan ’78, Scott Copeland ’78, and Lars Llorente ’78 — returned to campus to kick off this year’s edition.
They walked onto the Puddle and held hands at the edge of the hole in the ice on Lake Andrews. Callahan gave a kind of blessing, a sweet summing up of the enduring power of Bates friendship: “Best buds for 50 years.” And in they went.
Selected from Mirror yearbooks, The Bates Student, and, more recently, from the photography of Bates Communications and Marketing, here’s an incomplete history of the event that began when four first-year students, on the night of St. Patrick’s Day in 1975, performed an act of simple silliness, later famously described as “exuberance at the end of a hard winter.”
St. Patrick’s Day, 1975
Approximate temperature: 28 degrees
The first Puddle Jump took place on the evening of St. Patrick’s Day, Monday, March, 17, 1975. While the Student reported that the weather was “extremely harsh,” the daytime temperature hit a mild 44 degrees, perhaps giving a bit of spring fever to the four founders, Christopher Callahan ’78, Scott Copeland ’78, Lars Llorente ’78, and Mark Stevens ’77.
It was all about “exuberance at the end of a hard winter,” according to Callahan.
St. Patrick’s Day, 1977
Approximate temperature: 26 degrees
St. Patrick’s Day, 1978
Approximate temperature: 28 degrees
St. Patrick’s Day, 1980
Approximate temperature: 40 degrees
This photograph likely shows an emergent tradition of the Puddle Jump in the 1980s. Participants would gather in the basement of Smith South to hear a “Dip Master” — perhaps seen here — read from the Dip Book (which has been lost to history), which apparently had a letter from founder Scott Copeland as well as the names of Dip Masters past.
St. Patrick’s Day, 1982
Approximate temperature: 28 degrees
The front page of The Bates Student of March 19, 1982, published two days after the Puddle Jump, curiously juxtaposed a story and photo of Elie Wiesel, who spoke in the Chapel the previous Monday evening, and two photos of the Puddle Jump.
St. Patrick’s Day, 1984
Approximate temperature: 30 degrees
St. Patrick’s Day, 1987
Approximate temperature: 25 degrees
By the 1980s, the jump has settled into a familiar format for the era. Two students, positioned on either side of the small hole, literally dunk students into the puddle. That is, no jumping, just dipping. And, by the 1980s, the event was known as the “puddle jump.”
St. Patrick’s Day, 1993
Approximate temperature: 30 degrees with snow
By 1993, the tradition is now called an “obligatory rite of passage for every true Bates student” in the caption of a photo taken by Alexis Gentile Comrack ’93.
St. Patrick’s Day, 1994
Approximate temperature: 24 degrees
On March 18, 1994, The Bates Student cleverly juxtaposed photographs of two Bates traditions, “one academic and the other extracurricular; both are time honored.”
On the left was Toby White ’94 submitting his 101-page interdisciplinary honors thesis, Quantum Conversations: Gender, Metaphor, and Privilege in Theoretical Physics, to Joyce Caron just before the 3 p.m. deadline on March 16.
The photo at right showed a student getting dunked into Lake Andrews during the Puddle Jump the next day.
St. Patrick’s Day, 1995
Approximate temperature: 30 degrees
Jan. 15, 2001
Approximate temperature: 14 degrees
By the early 2000s, the Puddle Jump was a dual threat, offered on St. Patrick’s Day as well as during Winter Carnival.
The Bates Student of Jan. 23, 2001, reported that “several hardy souls braved the icy waters of Lake Andrews…as a tradition of questionable sanity, the ‘puddle jump,’ was revived on opening night of Winter Carnival.”
St. Patrick’s Day 2001
Approximate temperature: 28 degrees
A new trend in the new decade, one that would persist into the early 2010: naked jumpers.
Jan. 26, 2002
Approximate temperature: 37 degrees
In 2002, The Bates Student downvoted the January / Outing Club version of the jump.
Tim Ayers ’04 gave a jump-by-jump report of the January jump in The Bates Student. “The pattern that jumpers followed was pretty much the same every time,” he wrote. “First, the jumper would strip to either a bathing suit, underwear, or in some cases, just a birthday suit. They would then proceed to hop up and down and swear rather loudly as they made their way across the snow toward the hole in the ice.
“The brave person would then take a deep breath and leap. It is expected that the jumper will fully submerge their head before pulling themselves out using the rope dipped into the water.
“One jumper, much to her dismay, fell back into the water three more times before finally climbing out. The thoroughly chilled Batesie then ran to the bonfire where he or she would stand shivering, but not without a huge grin.”
Jan. 18, 2003
Approximate temperature: 12 degrees
Nearly two decades old, the Puddle Jump began to warrant historical treatment in The Bates Student. A math-challenged story noted that the event began in the “late 1970s” and is now “at an estimated age of 35 years.”
In the story about that year’s event, Hannah Johnson-Breimeier ’06 gave an apt answer to why students do the Puddle Jump. “There’s a feeling of accomplishment,” she said.
March 5, 2004
Approximate temperature: 35 degrees
With a high of just 9 degrees on Jan. 25, 2004, the Puddle Jump was postponed. Then it was postponed again when the Outing Club could not secure a permit for the bonfire (too windy).
The event finally went off in March, but was sparsely attended. The Student sounded a death knell. “The Puddle Jump used to be an anticipated event, where upwards of 100 people took a dip in the frozen puddle, with hundreds of others cheering.”
But in fact, the Puddle Jump was just enjoying a rebirth. This photo of the 2005 event, the first digital coverage of the event by Bates Communications and Marketing, appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education that year.
Jan. 21, 2006
Approximate temperature: 40 degrees
The unseasonably warm 52-degree Puddle Jump Day on Jan. 21, 2006, made for record numbers at the Puddle Jump and one unexpected result. “Participation was high!” reported The Bates Student. “Unfortunately, so was male nudity.”
Jan. 26, 2007
Approximate temperature: 40 degrees
While axes and ice augers were used for a number of years to create the hole, the Outing Club would ultimately turn to more powerful tools, like chain saws.
Jan. 18, 2008
Approximate temperature: 40 degrees
For many years, students would gather around the hole during the Puddle Jump, and jumping into the water was a pell-mell affair. Today, students gather along the walkway, and walk out in groups.
Jan. 23, 2009
Approximate temperature: 18 degrees
Jan. 22, 2010
BOC stalwart Dots Loopesko ’10 (center) gets a hand from fellow BOCer Jeremy Porter ’11 (left) as the Outing Club preps the jumping hole in 2010.
Approximate temperature: 31 degrees
Jan. 20, 2011
Approximate temperature: 26 degrees
The annual tradition earned some media attention off campus with a video of the Jan. 20, 2011, Puddle Jump featured in the Lewiston Sun Journal, and an unexpected shout out from the Vietnam news portal Zing.
Jan. 17, 2012
Approximate temperature: 33 degrees
By the 2010, costumes were a solid part of Puddle Jump tradition, with students wearing everything from duck and mermaid costumes to the flags of their country of origin as capes.
Jan. 18, 2013
Approximate temperature: 15 degrees (Brrrrr!)
Jan. 17, 2014
Approximate temperature: 40 degrees
Now retired, Jim Guzelian, the college’s enivornmental health and safety specialist — better known as “Safety Jim” — was a mainstay at the Puddle Jump, including helping students secure wood for the all-important bonfire.
Jan. 23, 2015
Approximate temperature: 29 degrees
Feb. 12, 2016
Approximate temperature: 17 degrees
The 2016 edition of the Puddle Jump featured some pond skimming.
Jan. 20, 2017
Approximate temperature: 36 degrees
Jan. 26, 2018
Approximate temperature: 26 degrees
Feb. 9, 2019
Approximate temperature: 32 degrees
From left, founders and 1978 classmates Scott Copeland , Chris Callahan, and Lars Llorente returned for the 2019 jump.
Jan. 31, 2020
Approximate temperature: 38 degrees
January 2021
Not held due to COVID.
Feb. 11, 2022
Approximate temperature: 43 degrees
Some facts from 2022:
- Hole dimension: 13 feet by 13 feet
- Cutting tool: 20-inch Makita chainsaw, handled by Jack Fruechte ’22 of Minneapolis
- Temperature: 43 degrees
- Wind direction and speed: South at 15mph
- Ice thickness: 6 inches, topped by another 6 inches of crusty snow
Feb. 10, 2023
Approximate temperature: 52 degrees
Feb. 9, 2024
Approximate temperature: 38 degrees
Feb. 7, 2025
Approximate temperature: 29 degrees
Llorente, Callahan, and Copeland respond to the cheers of current Bates students, just before kicking off the 2025 edition of the long-running Puddle Jump today, Feb. 7. Well done!
Categories Slideshow Student Life
