# Swarthmore College Garnet Weekend, October 30 and 31, 2026: four morning walls and one afternoon wall to photograph on campus, and the light in the Ville between events > Swarthmore College Garnet Weekend, October 30 and 31, 2026: four campus walls that line up with the low morning sun, when to be there around the weekend's events, where to stand for the family picture, a wall in low afternoon light, and the light in the Ville between events. This is the Markdown form of https://hengedays.com/articles/buildings-to-photograph-swarthmore-family-weekend-2026, with the same words as the page. Part of [Family Weekends 2026](https://hengedays.com/articles/family-weekends-2026), school 21 of 26. Previous school: [Bowdoin College](https://hengedays.com/articles/buildings-to-photograph-bowdoin-family-weekend-2026). Next school: [College of Charleston](https://hengedays.com/articles/buildings-to-photograph-college-of-charleston-family-weekend-2026). *Willets Hall, the longest wall in the list and the family photo spot, in Henge Days. Pink marks the wall the morning sun lines up with on both days of Garnet Weekend.* For October 30 to 31, 2026. Garnet Weekend, Swarthmore College's homecoming and family weekend, runs on Friday, October 30, and Saturday, October 31, 2026. This guide lists four walls on campus that the low morning sun lands on square that weekend, and one that gets low afternoon sun. It gives the times and a spot for the family picture. It adds where the light falls in the Ville, the small downtown at the foot of Magill Walk, between events. Post yours with #HengeDays. In this article - [The weekend's schedule and the light](#the-weekend-s-schedule-and-the-light) - [Part 1: The Swarthmore College campus](#part-1-the-swarthmore-college-campus) - [Part 2: The Ville](#part-2-the-ville) - [Low sun](#low-sun) - [How the list was made](#how-the-list-was-made) - [How to read each entry](#how-to-read-each-entry) Every time in this guide is US Eastern (Eastern Daylight Time). For a level horizon, the sun rises at 7:28 AM on Friday and 7:29 AM on Saturday, at about 108 degrees, and sets at 6:01 and 6:00 PM, at about 252 degrees. Four walls on campus have a clear view of the sun this weekend, all of them in the morning. No wall in the Ville passes the checks. ### The weekend's schedule and the light The College's [Garnet Weekend page](https://www.swarthmore.edu/garnetweekend) gave October 30 and 31, 2026, as the dates in search results on October 17, and called the weekend its homecoming and family weekend. Those results held no 2026 list of events, and the registration page could not be opened from where this guide was written. The one event below comes from the College's pages on earlier Garnet Weekends. Swarthmore has had no football team since 2000, so no game is on the list. Check the schedule at [swarthmore.edu/garnetweekend](https://www.swarthmore.edu/garnetweekend) and match it to the light below. - Friday, October 30, morning: sunrise is at 7:28 AM. At 7:30 AM the sun lines up with the east-southeast wall of the Benjamin West House, 0.1 degrees up. Dana Hall and Kyle House follow at 7:52 AM and Willets Hall at 8:03 AM. - Friday, October 30, evening: the Garnet Athletics Hall of Fame induction. In recent years it has been held on the Friday evening of Garnet Weekend, in 2025 at the Lang Performing Arts Center ([Swarthmore College](https://www.swarthmore.edu/garnet-weekend-2025/watch-garnet-athletics-hall-fame-induction-ceremony)). The search results gave no 2026 time or place. Before it, Martin Hall's west-southwest wall gets low sun at 5:02 PM. Sunset is at 6:01 PM. - Saturday, October 31, morning: sunrise is at 7:29 AM. Dana Hall lines up at 7:50 AM, Kyle House at 7:51 AM and Willets Hall at 8:02 AM, the family photo spot below. - Saturday, October 31, afternoon: Martin Hall gets low sun at 5:04 PM, and the sun sets at 6:00 PM. ### Part 1: The Swarthmore College campus Four walls, in the order a morning runs, each with a clear view of the sun in the map data. Three are residence halls, seen from campus walks and lawns. The whole campus is the Scott Arboretum. Its trees are not part of the check, and many stand close to these walls. #### 1 Benjamin West House Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Wall east-southeast, facing 108° Sun The rising sun lines up with this wall on Oct 30. Best: Friday, October 30 at 7:30 AM, 0.1° above the horizon. Leaves The campus is the Scott Arboretum, and its trees stand close to many walls. A forecast issued October 12 put peak color in Philadelphia County, next to Delaware County, around October 26 ([More Than Just Parks](https://morethanjustparks.com/foliage-tracker/pennsylvania)). Trees in front of a wall can still carry leaves and shade it when the sun is this low. Where to stand The wall is the house's east-southeast side. Stand on the campus lawn or the footpath east-southeast of the wall, with the sun behind you. Stay off Visitor's Center Road south of the house. The sun lines up with the wall at 7:30 AM on Friday, 0.1 degrees up, two minutes after sunrise. On Saturday the sun rises already past square to this wall. Nothing in the outlines stands in the way, so the whole 16 m wall is in the sun. Computed from the building outline and the sun's position, and not checked on the ground. Clear view Clear. No building in the map data rises above the sun (0.1° up) in its direction. The house is the birthplace of the painter Benjamin West, born in 1738. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1965 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_West_Birthplace)). The College uses it for its visitor information center and the offices of Public Safety ([Clio](https://theclio.com/entry/75842)). *The building page in Henge Days. The highlighted walls face 108°, toward the sunrise on the days in the row below; every wall carries its bearing.* - **Tue, Oct 27 to Fri, Oct 30, 2026**4 mornings · best Fri, Oct 30 **7:30 AM** Henge sunrise, sun on the horizon ESE 108° wall Its row in the Henge days list, with the time of the head-on moment on the best day. Save keeps that day in your planner, which can send it to your calendar app. Saving asks you to sign in with an email link; there is no password. *The year for every wall of the building. Each row is a wall; the colored runs are its henge, golden and low-sun days.* [Open this wall in Henge Days](https://hengedays.com/at/39.90513,-75.35142?q=Benjamin+West+House%2C+Swarthmore%2C+PA&b=osm%2Fway%2F48374946&facade=1&d=2026-10-27) #### 2 Dana Hall and Hallowell Hall Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Wall east-southeast, facing 111° Sun The low morning sun lines up with this wall on Oct 30 to 31. Best: Saturday, October 31 at 7:50 AM, 3.3° above the horizon. Leaves The campus is the Scott Arboretum, and its trees stand close to many walls. A forecast issued October 12 put peak color in Philadelphia County, next to Delaware County, around October 26 ([More Than Just Parks](https://morethanjustparks.com/foliage-tracker/pennsylvania)). Trees in front of a wall can still carry leaves and shade it when the sun is this low. Where to stand The wall is a short east-southeast side, 11 m long. Stand on the lawn east-southeast of it, inside the loop of Parrish Hall Road, with the sun behind you. Stay off Parrish Hall Road. The sun lines up with the wall at 7:52 AM on Friday and 7:50 AM on Saturday, 3.7 and 3.3 degrees up. These are golden days: at the head-on moment the sun is 2 to 6 degrees up. The Woman's Resource Center stands toward the sun and has no height in OpenStreetMap. With the height the check assumed, its roofline is at 2.6 degrees, below the sun on both days. Computed from the building outline and the sun's position, and not checked on the ground. Clear view Clear. No building in the map data rises above the sun (3.3° up) in its direction. Dana and Hallowell are residence halls on the south side of the campus, both built in 1967. A connector that opened in 2015, known as Danawell, joins them into one building ([Swarthmore College](https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/institutional-effectiveness-research-assessment/facilities.pdf)). *The building page in Henge Days. The highlighted walls face 111°, toward the sunrise on the days in the row below; every wall carries its bearing.* - **Mon, Oct 26 to Sun, Nov 8, 2026**14 mornings · best Sun, Nov 8 **6:39 AM** Golden sunrise, sun 0° up ESE 111° wall Its row in the Henge days list, with the time of the head-on moment on the best day. Save keeps that day in your planner, which can send it to your calendar app. Saving asks you to sign in with an email link; there is no password. *The year for every wall of the building. Each row is a wall; the colored runs are its henge, golden and low-sun days.* [Open this wall in Henge Days](https://hengedays.com/at/39.90340,-75.35721?q=Dana+Hall%2C+Swarthmore+College%2C+Swarthmore%2C+PA&b=osm%2Fway%2F48374716&facade=12&d=2026-10-26) #### 3 Kyle House Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Wall east-southeast, facing 112° Sun The low morning sun lines up with this wall on Oct 30 to 31. Best: Saturday, October 31 at 7:51 AM, 3.4° above the horizon. Leaves The campus is the Scott Arboretum, and its trees stand close to many walls. A forecast issued October 12 put peak color in Philadelphia County, next to Delaware County, around October 26 ([More Than Just Parks](https://morethanjustparks.com/foliage-tracker/pennsylvania)). Trees in front of a wall can still carry leaves and shade it when the sun is this low. Where to stand The wall is the hall's east-southeast side, 10 m long. Stand on the lawn a few steps east-southeast of it, with the sun behind you. Stay off the drive that passes the wall, Whittier Place and the grounds of Courtney Smith House, the president's house, farther in the same direction. The sun lines up with the wall at 7:52 AM on Friday and 7:51 AM on Saturday, 3.9 and 3.4 degrees up. These are golden days: at the head-on moment the sun is 2 to 6 degrees up. Courtney Smith House has no height in OpenStreetMap. With the height the check assumed, its roofline is at 2.4 degrees, below the sun on both days. Computed from the building outline and the sun's position, and not checked on the ground. Clear view Clear. No building in the map data rises above the sun (3.4° up) in its direction. Kyle House is a small residence hall at 1 Whittier Place, first occupied in 2003 ([Swarthmore College](https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/institutional-effectiveness-research-assessment/facilities.pdf)). *The building page in Henge Days. The highlighted walls face 112°, toward the sunrise on the days in the row below; every wall carries its bearing.* - **Mon, Oct 26 to Sun, Nov 8, 2026**14 mornings · best Sun, Nov 8 **6:40 AM** Golden sunrise, sun 0° up ESE 112° wall Its row in the Henge days list, with the time of the head-on moment on the best day. Save keeps that day in your planner, which can send it to your calendar app. Saving asks you to sign in with an email link; there is no password. *The year for every wall of the building. Each row is a wall; the colored runs are its henge, golden and low-sun days.* [Open this wall in Henge Days](https://hengedays.com/at/39.90868,-75.35363?q=Kyle+House%2C+Swarthmore+College%2C+Swarthmore%2C+PA&b=osm%2Fway%2F63408761&facade=0&d=2026-10-26) #### 4 Willets Hall Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Wall east-southeast, facing 113° Sun The low morning sun lines up with this wall on Oct 30 to 31. Best: Saturday, October 31 at 8:02 AM, 5.2° above the horizon. Leaves The campus is the Scott Arboretum, and its trees stand close to many walls. A forecast issued October 12 put peak color in Philadelphia County, next to Delaware County, around October 26 ([More Than Just Parks](https://morethanjustparks.com/foliage-tracker/pennsylvania)). Trees in front of a wall can still carry leaves and shade it when the sun is this low. Where to stand The wall is the hall's long east-southeast side, 44 m. Stand on the campus lawn and walks east-southeast of it, with the sun behind you. The sun lines up with the wall at 8:03 AM on Friday and 8:02 AM on Saturday, 5.7 and 5.2 degrees up. These are golden days: at the head-on moment the sun is 2 to 6 degrees up. Bond Lodges and Worth Hall stand toward the sun and have no height in OpenStreetMap. With the height the check assumed, their roofline is at 4.7 degrees, below the sun, and 32 m of the 44 m wall is in the sun on both days. Computed from the building outline and the sun's position, and not checked on the ground. Clear view Clear. No building in the map data rises above the sun (5.2° up) in its direction. Willets Hall is a residence hall in the middle of the campus, home to about 213 students, most of them first-years ([Swarthmore College](https://www.swarthmore.edu/campus-life/willets)). It was first occupied in 1959 ([Swarthmore College](https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/institutional-effectiveness-research-assessment/facilities.pdf)). *The building page in Henge Days. The highlighted walls face 113°, toward the sunrise on the days in the row below; every wall carries its bearing.* - **Fri, Oct 30 to Fri, Nov 13, 2026**15 mornings · best Fri, Nov 13 **6:45 AM** Golden sunrise, sun 0° up ESE 113° wall Its row in the Henge days list, with the time of the head-on moment on the best day. Save keeps that day in your planner, which can send it to your calendar app. Saving asks you to sign in with an email link; there is no password. *The year for every wall of the building. Each row is a wall; the colored runs are its henge, golden and low-sun days.* [Open this wall in Henge Days](https://hengedays.com/at/39.90589,-75.35161?q=Willets+Hall%2C+Swarthmore+College%2C+Swarthmore%2C+PA&b=osm%2Fway%2F48374971&facade=5&d=2026-10-30) Family photo spot. Stand the family on the lawn a few steps out from the east-southeast wall of Willets Hall, turned partway toward the camera. The photographer stands east-southeast of them, with the sun low behind and to one side, which lights faces and the wall behind them in the same warm light. Go on Saturday at 8:02 AM, or on Friday at 8:03 AM, the morning of the Hall of Fame induction. Post it with #HengeDays. Computed from the building outline and the sun's position, and not checked on the ground. ### Part 2: The Ville The Ville is the borough of Swarthmore's small downtown, at the foot of Magill Walk past the SEPTA station, along Dartmouth and Park Avenues. No wall in the Ville passes the checks this weekend. The long west-southwest side of the Swarthmore Co-op, the borough's grocery store on Dartmouth Avenue, lines up with the sunset at 5:55 PM on Friday and 5:56 PM on Saturday, 0.7 and 0.3 degrees up. The Inn at Swarthmore stands toward the sun and has no height in OpenStreetMap. With the height the check assumed, its roofline is at 1.7 degrees, above the sun, so the wall may be in its shadow. The ground in front of that wall is Dartmouth Court and a parking area, with no sidewalk in the map data, so the Co-op is not an entry. For a picture in the Ville, walk down Magill Walk from Parrish Hall to the station in the late afternoon. At 5:00 PM on both days the sun is about 10 degrees up at 242 degrees, west-southwest, and at 5:30 PM it is about 5 degrees up at 247 degrees. Those times come from the sun's position alone. Trees and buildings west of the Ville are not part of them. ### Low sun With few walls in golden light, this wall gets the low afternoon sun square on. At the head-on moment the sun is 6 to 10 degrees up, higher than in golden light, so the color is less warm and the shadows are shorter. #### 5 Martin Hall Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Wall west-southwest, facing 242° Sun The evening sun lines up with this wall, 6 to 10° up, on Oct 30 to 31. Best: Saturday, October 31 at 5:04 PM, 9.2° above the horizon. Leaves The campus is the Scott Arboretum, and its trees stand close to many walls. A forecast issued October 12 put peak color in Philadelphia County, next to Delaware County, around October 26 ([More Than Just Parks](https://morethanjustparks.com/foliage-tracker/pennsylvania)). Trees in front of a wall can still carry leaves and shade it when the sun is this low. Where to stand The wall is the west-southwest side, 27 m. The wall comes in two parts, either side of a corner. Stand on the campus lawn between the wall and Whittier Place, west-southwest of it, with the sun behind you. Stay out of Whittier Place. OpenStreetMap marks the building as under construction. If a fence is up, stay outside it. The sun lines up with the wall at 5:02 PM on Friday and 5:04 PM on Saturday, 9.6 and 9.2 degrees up. This is low sun: at the head-on moment the sun is 6 to 10 degrees up. Nothing in the outlines rises above the sun, and 23 m of the 27 m wall is in the sun on both days. Computed from the building outline and the sun's position, and not checked on the ground. Clear view Clear. No building in the map data rises above the sun (9.2° up) in its direction. Martin Hall opened in 1937 as the College's biology building ([The Phoenix](https://swarthmorephoenix.com/2023/10/05/happy-86th-birthday-martin-hall-and-how-a-eugencist-spoke-at-its-dedication/)). Its renovation turns it into a home for the Film and Media Studies and Computer Science departments ([Goody Clancy](https://www.goodyclancy.com/project/martin-hall-2/)). *The building page in Henge Days. The highlighted walls face 242°, toward the sunset on the days in the row below; every wall carries its bearing.* - **Mon, Oct 19 to Thu, Nov 26, 2026**39 evenings · best Thu, Nov 26 **4:37 PM** Low sun sunset, sun 0° up WSW 242° wall Its row in the Henge days list, with the time of the head-on moment on the best day. Save keeps that day in your planner, which can send it to your calendar app. Saving asks you to sign in with an email link; there is no password. *The year for every wall of the building. Each row is a wall; the colored runs are its henge, golden and low-sun days.* [Open this wall in Henge Days](https://hengedays.com/at/39.90595,-75.35573?q=Martin+Hall%2C+Swarthmore+College%2C+Swarthmore%2C+PA&b=osm%2Fway%2F972288884&facade=7&d=2026-10-19) ### How the list was made Henge Days computed every building within 300 to 400 meters of 11 points: Parrish Hall and Parrish Beach, the Science Center and the Friends Meeting House, McCabe Library and Kohlberg Hall, the Lang Performing Arts Center and Clothier Hall, Sharples and Wharton Hall, the Lamb-Miller Field House and Clothier Field, Magill Walk and the station, the Ville, the Presbyterian Church and Borough Hall, and two points on State Street in Media, about 4 km northwest. It used 784 OpenStreetMap outlines. It kept named buildings with a wall of 8 m or more, and unnamed ones with a wall of 20 m or more, where the sun lines up with the wall within 10 degrees of the horizon on October 30 or 31. It then traced the sun's path from points along each wall over all 784 outlines and dropped walls where a neighboring building stands higher than the sun. Almost no outline on the campus or in the Ville carries a height, so the check estimated heights by building type. Two days is a short window, and the checks leave four clear walls, all on campus, fewer than in this package's other guides. The other walls that line up stand behind a neighbor or fail the access rule below, so the list has four picks and one wall in low sun. Courtney Smith House, the president's house, has a wall that lines up with a clear view. ABC House on Harvard Avenue also lines up in the scout's first pass. Each is a home, so neither is on the list. Three walls are blocked only by a building with an estimated height, and each lacks a public place to stand. The Swarthmore Co-op is described under Part 2. Woolman Hall lines up at 7:30 AM on Friday, but an unnamed college building in front of it rises to an estimated 1.9 degrees, and the wall faces houses off Walnut Lane with no campus walk in front. The Swarthmore Presbyterian Church gets low sun at 5:17 and 5:18 PM, but ABC House rises to an estimated 9.9 degrees in front of it, and the ground in front of the wall is the church's drive and the neighboring lot. Whittier Hall, the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, the Palmer, Pittenger and Roberts residence halls and the east wall of the field house stand behind neighbors well above the sun. Two unnamed college buildings near Whittier Place line up but are shaded. In Media, two State Street walls line up, but one is shaded and the other has 7 m of its 21 m wall in the sun, too little to photograph. Parrish Hall, Clothier Hall, McCabe Library and the Lang Performing Arts Center have no wall the sun lines up with on these days. Hills and trees are not part of that check, and the times assume a level horizon. The Scott Arboretum's trees cover the campus and can shade a wall when the sun is this low, and the Crum Creek valley drops away west of the campus. Each entry names the building that rises highest toward the sun from in front of the wall. Where its outline carries no height, the check assumed one and the entry says so. Every date and time comes from the Henge Days engine for the wall's own bearing. ### How to read each entry Each entry shows the building as Henge Days shows it. The map marks the building's outline from OpenStreetMap, gives every wall its compass bearing, and highlights the wall that lines up with the sun. Below it are the wall's row from the building's Henge days list, with a Save button that keeps the best day in your planner, and a year of head-on days for every wall. Any building has a page like the ones above, your student's hall included. Whatever you shoot, post it with #HengeDays. [Find a wall in Henge Days](https://hengedays.com/) [Open your planner](https://hengedays.com/planner) ### Sources - [Swarthmore College: Garnet Weekend](https://www.swarthmore.edu/garnetweekend) - [Swarthmore College: Garnet Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Garnet Weekend 2025](https://www.swarthmore.edu/garnet-weekend-2025/watch-garnet-athletics-hall-fame-induction-ceremony) - [Swarthmore College: Facilities](https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/institutional-effectiveness-research-assessment/facilities.pdf) - [Swarthmore College: Willets Hall](https://www.swarthmore.edu/campus-life/willets) - [Wikipedia: Benjamin West Birthplace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_West_Birthplace) - [Clio: Benjamin West Birthplace](https://theclio.com/entry/75842) - [The Phoenix: Happy 86th birthday, Martin Hall, October 5, 2023](https://swarthmorephoenix.com/2023/10/05/happy-86th-birthday-martin-hall-and-how-a-eugencist-spoke-at-its-dedication/) - [Goody Clancy: Martin Hall](https://www.goodyclancy.com/project/martin-hall-2/) - [More Than Just Parks foliage forecast: Pennsylvania](https://morethanjustparks.com/foliage-tracker/pennsylvania) - [Fox29: When is the best time to see peak fall colors across the Northeast?](https://www.fox29.com/news/when-is-best-time-see-peak-fall-colors-across-northeast) - [Building outlines: OpenStreetMap contributors](https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) ### The newsletter Henge Days also has a newsletter. It covers what each release of the site adds and how to use it, and the buildings the #HengeDays community photographs in head-on light. [Read it on Substack](https://hengedays.substack.com/). The address goes to Substack, which sends the email and asks you to confirm. Henge Days does not keep it. --- Every date and time on Henge Days is computed from a building outline in OpenStreetMap and the position of the sun. Nobody has checked it on the ground. Hills, trees and other buildings can block a low sun. Treat each date as a plan to confirm before you travel. See https://hengedays.com/terms.md. Henge Days is free to use; sign in only to save days to a planner. Contact: hello@hengedays.com.