Independently Hiking the Fifty

One of the most iconic of Dartmouth’s student challenges, “The Fifty” involves hiking nonstop for 54 miles on the Appalachian trail, with a total elevation gain of roughly 14,000 feet. The challenge—which starts at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge and ends at Dartmouth’s campus—is organized by the Dartmouth Outing Club, which provides gear and assistance to those groups which are selected.

Only eight of 45 applying groups were selected to participate in the “23F DOC Fifty.” Despite being among those who were rejected, my group—Nate Branscum, Arda Dumanli, Leonhardt Fuchs, and I—didn’t lose hope. We decided to hike the entire Fifty unsupported. 

But consequently we wouldn’t have access to the food and water supplies provided by the DOC at five support stations located roughly every 10 miles. Given our water and energy consumption and the length of the hike, we would have been required to carry roughly 70 liters of water and 30,000 calories worth of food. This wasn’t practically possible, so bringing our own food just wasn’t going to work. 

Therefore, we came up with an elaborate plan to stash our own food and water supplies in advance at two locations along our route, dividing the Fifty into three almost equal parts. Our first makeshift “supply station” was located at Atwell Hill Trailhead (roughly 18 miles in), and our second was at the Dartmouth Skiway (roughly 36 miles in). 

Each supply station included 24 liters of water and roughly 10,000 calories of snacks. In order to prevent animals from biting into our supplies, we stored the food in plastic containers, which we wrapped with plastic tape. We then hid our supplies with soil and leaves. 

Surprisingly, our first food supply station perfectly coincided with the DOC’s second support station—the DOC’s van was parked less than 10 feet away from our plastic container! This allowed us to enjoy a pleasant break with the other groups a third of the way in, when morale was still high.

We reached our second food supply station on Saturday morning. We were lucky to receive additional support from Nicholas Zane and Lucas LaRoche, who brought us new socks and warm food from Domino’s and Lou’s. Their support gave us a significant morale boost to face the final—and by far the most challenging—part of the hike.

Our unsupported Fifty reached a new level of difficulty when we summited Moose Mountain on late Saturday afternoon. Sleep deprivation was starting to kick in heavily. We were about to face the second night without sleep but still had over 10 miles to go! 

We came incredibly close to losing consciousness while on the trail and soon had our first serious hallucinations. I remember thinking I saw a statue of Mary carved from a tree: a symbol of protection that is very common in the Dolomites, the mountains where I grew up hiking. Later, I was convinced I saw a hand-sized angel beating its wings, but I soon realized that it was only a dead leaf. I began feeling particularly worried when Arda misidentified a rock for a car when we still had over six hours of hiking left. 

Velvet Rocks proved to be the ultimate test, as we lost the poorly marked trail several times. During the last 5 miles, we started feeling our feet burning, as if there were a fire inside our boots. We tried mentally to distance our brains from our bodies to dissociate from the pain as we kept walking. 

After 36 hours of struggle we finally reached Hanover—against all odds, might I add. The foot pain was so intense that taking a rapid shower before collapsing on my bed was difficult and painful.

Yet, in completing the Fifty, we accomplished something that few Dartmouth students are even able to attempt. We proved to ourselves that we were up to the challenge, making our venture well worth the pain and struggle.