The Troop 50/55 Fifty Mile Hike of 1970

Thirteen of us started out from Mahoosic Notch that day. In the minds of two men and eleven boys the culmination of several months of planning were focused on that trailhead and the fortnight ahead.

Our ages ranged from 12 to 36 (with the distribution across the group looking somewhat like a shepherd's crook: /\_________). The names and photos are laid out at http://www.thecatdragdinn.org/troop50/1970_50miler_roster.htm (and that page, at this 39th Anniversary, is in need of serious updating. Please write me with your bio and any contact info of members of our group.) but just for purposes of discussion--and in no order that I remember why: Al Oxton, Artie Rogers, Bill Inman, Bob Loring, Bobby Loring, Chick MacLean, Chris Dahl, Dave Bagdigian, Dave Loring, Mark Hogan, Mark Pendergast, Randy Bunny, Tony Messina. We were joined for the last few days by Eileen Loring and Kathy Ahlin.

At this late writing there are lots of details lost. Some others are no doubt mixed up in order of presentation. Mostly those discrepancies do not matter I'm sure. What does matter is that we accomplished our goal. Altogether, with only one serious injury, no illnesses, several faux pas, a fortnight of good weather--arranging for that part was quite a strain--the Fifty Miler was a successful undertaking. If you have anything to add or change in this storey please write me.

For the most part we followed the Appalachian Trail from Mahoosic Notch to Pinkham Notch. All nights within the bounds of the fifty miles were spent in shelter areas sleeping under large poly-tarps. One night beyond the fifty mile mark, the last night on the trail as we planned, was at the AMC Mizpah Hut. Our hike plan included placing several food caches up to a fortnight ahead of expected use and one cache that was stored in the van of the two women who met us at Ethan Pond Shelter.

Planning commenced back in the Spring. Probly even earlier than that the event was most certainly part of the annual programme plans of both Scout Troops. Overall we tried to involve all the boys in the planning and to make all decisions by consensus. Organisation was along the lines of a crew or team as opposed to a patrol. The only division within that crew was for the purposes of cooking. We generally slept where we could find space. Beyond a general description of the route, the details of overnight camps, cache locations, service project areas, trash disposal, menu, personal equipment and prerequisites, and such plans for emergency as could be made, took up most of the early planning meetings. All the boys had to be First Class. This adventure took place in a time before GPS and cell phones, a time when boys wore shorts, when boys could think and had common sense. (See "The Death of Common Sense" about halfway down the page at "Control by Political Correctness".

Planning meetings.

As individuals in the two troops the kids and leaders had prior experience with dehydrated and freeze-dried foods. Despite Official Boy Scout rules to the contrary all the boys were familiar with the use of white gas stoves. We were planning to carry two stoves and enough spare parts to rebuild at least one of them. And there were also lists of other spares: Bootlaces and buttons, duct tape and electrical tape, bailing wire and boot grease, toilet paper and "official strings". I still have two of them: The Green one and the Orange one.

Our sleeping tarps were 16x20 foot heavy duty poly drop cloths reinforced with duct tape. There were two of them and they could be pitched just about anywhere a whole lot easier than tents. There was one fairly substantial Group First Aid Kit and the slowest hiker carried that and we always knew where to find him.

Personal equipment list went in two directions. Some things were required. Some things were disallowed. Gameboys and CD players were of course a non-issue but full blown messkits and lots of extra clothing were actively discouraged. The idea was to pack light. Your pack could not weigh more than a third of your body weight and that included your share of the group kit. Each tripper's mess kit consisted of a cup and a spoon. There was nothing on the menu that required a fork or a knife however a sheath knife or a pocket knife was required.

Careful attention and testing determined how much fuel was consumed to boil the water necessary for breakfast and supper. Calculating from that premise we knew how much fuel to carry and how much had to be stored in each cache. The same attention to detail was applied to other consumables such as toilet paper and boot grease.

The menu was pretty much the same from day to day. Breakfast consisted of three cups of hot water per person, a package of instant oatmeal, a package of hot cocoa, a package of "Tang" orange juice powder. The recommended procedure was to have the oatmeal with your first cup of hot water. When the oatmeal was gone you would then add to your cup the cocoa powder and the second cup of hot water. The Tang could be had with your third cup of hot water or you could mix it cold. Wipe out your cup with a square of T.P. and you were ready to go.

Lunch consisted of hard biscuits, potted meats, cheese, apples. We had several gallon-sized heavy poly drink-mix bags that were tenderly cared for. Each bag was accompanied by an "Official String" used to tie it closed with a clove hitch. Drink mix powders were prepared as necessary for lunch and supper in these bags; the bags were watched carefully lest the precious fluid leak away. I still have two of the Official Strings in the galley at The Cat Drag'd Inn.

Every supper was built around two #10 tins of some Mountain House entre. (Mountain House foods are still available.) Each stove boiled a #10 tin of water and it was then carefully poured into the #10 tin of food product. Cover and sit for a few minutes and it was ready to eat. There were never any leftovers; empty tins could be used to carry trash. With the addition of a soft steel wire bail they could replace the ones we used for boiling water. Granoila bars, chocolate, raisins, dried bananas, rounded out the menu.

There were bags of gorp and a precious supply of beef jerky for munchies along the trail. Water was not a problem, plenty of that along the way.

Hiking plan. Let the kids sort it out. No point in trying to keep order. Everyone had a map and an itinerary. We had read through the trail descriptions and knew the names of all the junctions. Basically the idea was that we would all leave camp when everyone was ready to go. Each hiker was responsible for the person behind him. You could hike in sets of any number tho it was rare that there was more than two or three. But you looked over your shoulder every so often and if you could not see the person behind you then you stopped and waited. You never passed a trail junction alone. Usually a trail junction was cause to regroup. In theory at least the leader should be able to bring the entire group to a halt over the course of a half an hour without a single shout.

Shakedown hikes gave us opportunity to see how all these ideas worked and at our planning meetings we counted and packed all the necessary items. Per meal, per day, per cache. Rations of T.P., bars of candy, boxes of raisins, packages of oatmeal, pints of white gas, tins of main meals, boot grease and laces, spare parts of all sorts. Everything was arranged in piles. The first pile was what we would carry initially. The second pile was for the Whitehouse Bridge Cache. Third pile was the Galehead Hut Cache. Fourth pile was the Ethan Pond Cache. Fifth pile was the Crawford Notch Van Cache. Except for that last one each cache consisted of two boxes. Meals were arranged each in their own bag packed by day along with snacks and other supplies.

Putting in the Caches.

A week before the Fifty Miler was to start, when everything had been counted and checked and labelled and everyone was satisfied we would not starve we met to actually pack the boxes and emplace the caches. The cardboard boxes we would use for the caches were first lined with large plastic trash bags and then packed with the day bags. That layer was sealed and then the fuel bottles were added to the box and sealed. Then the box was double wrapped in more garbage bags. Four boys and myself went on the cache expedition. Artie Rogers, our Group First Aider, prepared a special treat for supper on that trip when he butchered one of his rabbits and made a stew. We were all excited. The grand adventure was about to commence.

The Whitehouse Bridge Cache was buried not too far from the trail near Whitehouse Brook and Whitehouse Bridge. We would be there after three days--the third night--on the trail. Whitehouse Bridge was a public carpark and picnic area where we would leave our trash.

The Galehead Hut cache was next. After nights at Liberty Spring and Garfield Pond we would pass by Galehead Hut on our way to the Guyot Shelter Area. After leaving our cache safely inside the hut we packed out two loads of their hut trash so they would accept our trail trash when we came through most of a week after the start of our hike.

The third cache was buried in the woods behind the Ethan Pond Shelter. It would be about a fortnight before we would retrieve this cache. The fourth cache would be left in the van that Eileen and Kathy would bring to Crawford's when they hiked in to meet us at Ethan Pond.

Fifty Miles: From Kinsman Notch to Somewhat Beyond Crawford Notch.

Eliza Brook Shelter, First Night.

Our only serious injury happened that first night. Mark Hogan was using one of the folding buck saws to prepare wood for a little campfire when the blade jumped out of the kerf on the downstroke and incised his left index finger between second and third knuckles. Sharp saw. Good clean cut. Right to the bone. We cleaned him up, put on a butterfly plaster and a splint, and turned the firewood task over to someone else. Today I have to wonder if Super Glue would not have done a better job. It is amazing what some kids will do just to get out of chores. In the morning the wound was clean and looked ok. We decided to go on.

Second Night? Not sure where we were. In the vicinity of Lonesome Lake maybe? Part of the personal goals of some of the trippers was to bag peaks along the way for the AMC 4000 Footer Award. For the most part the section of the Appalachian Trail we were following went over most of them however there were a number of peaks off to the side of the main trail and there were also opportunities to circumvent the summits.

White House Bridge Cache & Camp. Third Night. First order of business was a phone call to Mark Hogan's parents. The Flume Store was about half a mile south of Whitehouse Bridge so whilst the group busied itself with finding the first cache and setting camp Mark and I hiked south to find a public phone. (Cell phones had yet to be invented.) If his parents felt strongly that he should have professional attention at this point then it would be a long drive for them to come get him. His wound had closed and showed no sign of infection and in that matter they agreed with me that we should go on. And so we did.

Today I wonder if I would even try to get away with such first aid. I wonder if in his turn and in today's litigous climate, if he would choose to let his own son continue with such a hike.

Liberty Spring Camp. Fourth/Fifth Night.

Long steep slog, up hill all the way. Liberty Spring had a number of tent platforms so we strung out our tarps and settled in for two nights. Our primary direction was north but there were two peaks, Liberty and Flume, to the south which would make for a short easy hike on a layover day. It was pleasant to get out for a walk without the burden of heavy packs.

Garfield Shelter. Sixth Night.

North across the Knife Edge of the Franconia Ridge: Little Haystack, Lincoln, Lafayette, and Garfield. The Franconia Ridge Trail gave way to the Garfield Ridge Trail and the faster boys went on ahead to stake a claim at the shelter. Not to chase anyone away mind you, "...only let them know that you are just waiting for the other ten kids to catch up before you start supper." By now we were looking forward to our next cache and the possibility of some freshies.

Galehead Hut Cache and Trash Exchange--Guyot Shelter Camp and Service Project. Seventh & Eighth Nights.

We were pretty much at elevation now and pack weight was at a low with only trash to carry and a cache ahead. Our trash for cache exchange went well and there was opportunity to purchase fresh fruit before heading more or less southeast to Mount Guyot and the shelter there. Along this section of the trail are Galehead and South Twin. Guyot was about half way through the fifty miles and we planned for two or three nights to allow plenty of time for more peak-bagging--West Bond, Mount Bond, and The Cliffs--and a day for equipment maintenance and our service project.

Our service project consisted of digging out the mud hole of a spring just below the Guyot Shelter and moving around a lot of rock to improve the flow and ameliorate the general nastiness. We spent some time carving out the center of a log several feet in length to build an aqueduct to bring the water from the source to a stone basin where the excess could drain through the stone. (It was all pretty much as we left it when I next visited twenty years later.) Everything was going along fine and dandy. Equipment and spirits all in good shape.

Zealand Falls Shopping and Ethan Pond Camp & Cache. Ninth & Tenth Nights.

From Guyot Shelter the Twinway becomes the Zealand Ridge Trail until, at a junction, the Zeacliff Trail turns away towards Thoreau Falls and the Ethan Pond Shelter. From that junction a few boys went on the longer loop around via Zealand Falls Hut to shop for fresh fruit. Some oranges and apples would make a nice addition to our dehydrated and freeze-dried diet.

At the Ethan Pond Shelter another cache awaited us along with Eileen, Bob's wife and co-advisor of the Explorer Section of our Scout Group, and Kathy Ahlin, one of the members. This pond was large enough for a swim and there were several more 4000-footers in the Willey Range to bag before we went on so we would stay here two nights. There was a faint trace of petrol in the air when we opened the cache that had lain a fortnight under the duff. None of the white gas bottles had leaked, there was no wetness, everything looked ok. But halfway through the first chocolate bar we knew that some things had been contaminated.

One didn't notice at first. Not until the aftertaste had a chance to work its way through to your conscious. The next morning the oatmeal went down fine but the aftertaste of gasoline lingered for hours. Every time one would burp it would be there again. I guess the lesson here is that plastic wrap, plastic bags, poly fuel bottles, do not prevent the migration of hydrocarbons in that kind of a closed space and close proximity. Probly only takes a few molecules to make a noticeable trace.

It didn't seem to hurt anyone, nobody got sick, and it was only that one breky. The tinned meals were ok and we would be soon out to the cache in the van which everyone expected would be in much better shape. But it did turn our thoughts to real food and what we each looked forward to: chocolate malts, hamburgers, fried chicken, gobs of salad, fizzy soda! Watermelon!

Crawford Notch Van Cache & The Big Pickle--The Nauman Shelter. Eleventh Night(?)

All the way down the trail, to the highway below Crawford Notch, where the van and its cache awaited, the talk went on. Eleven salivating boys discussing their favourites whilst knowing full well that only more cram and powdered drinks were on the menu for lunch. But!... what if there was a watermelon waiting there? Just-- imagine for a moment, what if there was a cooler of cold drinks? What a lunch that could turn into, eh? "Nah!", Artie, our First Aider and Rabbit Stew Chef said, "Even if there were a watermelon, I wouldn't touch it. I'm tough and I'm gonna see this hike through to the end before I have any watermelon." But the seed had been planted, the gauntlet thrown down.

Needless to say there was a watermelon. Two iced coolers of soda, ham, cheese, fresh bread and condiments, and a watermelon. Artie lingered on the edge of the crowd; he had his honour to defend. Finally someone said we should rename the watermelon to a pickle. A big pickle. Then Artie could have a slice of pickle with his ham sandwich and still save face.

Mizpah Hut -- Last Night and again 13 Years Later

I think the steepest single part of the whole fifty miles was the section of Webster Cliff Trail from Willey House Site up to the top of the cliffs. It was a long slog. I don't remember for sure if we spent that night on the trail, at the Nauman Shelter, or went on to Mizpah Hut. In any case we would have been packing light at that point, a minimum of food and fuel, slightly offset perhaps by the accumulated dirt of nearly two weeks on the trail. Notwithstanding that, Mizpah was our last night. Real food, real beds, albeit still our sleeping bags, and someone to wait on table whilst we ate from plates with forks... It was quite a treat.

Thirteen years later, 1983, some of the original thirteen scouts and leaders had a bit of reunion to retrace a few of those steps and stay another night at Mizpah. Now it occurs to me that we should get together again... The Summer of 2009 would be a good time.

Last Day--Group Foto and Out Over Boote Spur to Pinkham

All over but the shouting now. The group photo was the high spot of the last day and from there it was all downhill, over Boote Spur, to the AMC Pinkham Notch Camp where hot showers and rides home awaited.

--Emended & Expanded by ajo, Friday, 14 November, 2009

Needless to say at this point most all of 2009 slipped past unnoticed by all concerned. The remembering only occurred to me as I was copying all the slides to disk. (The collection as I have it is available on CD.) This year would have been our 39th Reunion! Can you believe it? Where have all the children gone?  So many miles ago... Next Year we could do a 40th! Mizpah for dinner. Pass the word. Let's Do!

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