Date: 2009-10-05
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To celebrate the centennial of the Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC), more than 200 Dartmouth alumni and students are attempting, through point-to-point segments, to hike the entire length of the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail (AT) in 24 hours. The hike begins at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, October 10. The feat has never been completed by an organization.
(Media-Newswire.com) - To celebrate the centennial of the Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC), more than 200 Dartmouth alumni and students are attempting, through point-to-point segments, to hike the entire length of the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail (AT) in 24 hours. The hike begins at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, October 10. The feat has never been completed by an organization.
Matt Dahlhausen, Class of 2011, and Athena Aicher, Class of 2011, are organizing the effort, which began in earnest this spring. “We’re 74 percent there,” reports Dahlhausen, who notes that the biggest gaps are south of Roanoke, Va. "North of Roanoke we've covered 98 percent of the trail,” he says.
Among the hikers is 91-year-old Henry Merrill, Class of 1939, an accomplished skier who served as ski-race chairman of the DOC’s Winter Carnival in 1939. As a student Merrill met his wife of 69 years, Mary Lois Igleheart, at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. “I’m glad to help out,” says Merrill of Greensboro, Vt., who still unloads firewood from his pickup truck. “I still think about my time with the outing club—skiing, clearing trails, working at Moosilauke.”
Merrill will hike a section of the AT that goes through Hanover, part of the 75 miles of the AT in Vermont and New Hampshire that the DOC has maintained since the founding of the trail in the 1920s.
In a letter sent yesterday to registered participants, the students wrote: "Hikers planning long hikes should consider starting early in the morning to complete their hike before midnight. Hikers should be prepared for sun, rain, cold, and possibly snow in northern New Hampshire and Maine."
Members of the Dartmouth Cross-Country Ski team are hiking portions of the "100-Mile Wilderness” in Maine, one of the longest and most remote sections on the AT, at the suggestion of their teammate Alice Bradley, Class of 2011. Bradley is co-chair of the DOC Centennial committee. The Dartmouth Ski Team was founded by the outing club and it continues to operate within the organization.
Joe Bachman, Class of 1991 and a former DOC president, is flying from New Hampshire to North Carolina to hike a section he used to maintain after he graduated from Dartmouth.
Leslie Jennings Rowley, Class of 1996, who is 7 and a half months pregnant, plans to hike with friends and her 2-year-old along the Delaware Water Gap. “It’s a great reason to get out on the trail,” says Rowley.
In communications to alumni, Dahlhausen and Aicher have encouraged hikers to re-connect with the trail community long-term by joining their local Appalachian Trail club. "Stewardship of the environment is a crucial part of the DOC," says Rory Gawler '05, DOC general manager. The outing club is also asking alumni to carry a special “AT in a Day” logo and send in photos of themselves at different sections of the hike along with stories from their day.
“We’re really pleased with the response,” says Dahlhausen, who recalls bringing up the idea to classmates after a stay in a cabin in the White Mountains. “I thought it was a crazy idea, but everyone took it seriously.”
The DOC was founded by student Fred Harris, Class of 1911, on December 14, 1909. It is the oldest collegiate outing club in the nation, and, with 3,000 members, one of the largest.
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