HANOYER AS A FIELD FOR OUTDOOR LIFE

[NOTE: This article is substantially the same as that prepared by Professor Goldthwait for the Outing Club booklet, shortly to appear. It is here printed as an interesting and able commentary upon the map of the region within five miles of Hanover, which has been prepared under Professor Goldthwait's direction and which is reproduced in this issue of THE MAGAZINE.]

Dartmouth College without its picturesque setting would be a strange place indeed. Take away from it the background of the New England hills and leave buildings, books, illustrious alumni and all the old traditions and the picture yet lacks its most attractive and characteristic colors. No wonder if the Dartmouth man is a man of vigor and action, who enjoys bodily as well as mental exercise; for he has spent four of the best years of his life in a country where one cannot stay long Here Nature calls from every direction; and often, it must be admitted, she tempts a fellow away from his studies.

"Cutting" classes is naturally the prevalent sin Dartmouth undergraduates; and yet if not indulged in to excess such pursuit of wholesome outdoor recreation is of immeasureable benefit to a man and binds him close to his alma mater. The clear invigorating air of the frosty fall and the crisp white winter, the ennobling beauty "of the hills, which varies so completely with the seasons, yet is forever tempting a man to-climb farther and higher for a more extended view; the New England hill farms, with their rocky pastures, their old apple orchards, and snug little farm houses; these and many other elements in the environment of the College contribute to make a man's Saturday afternoon outings and holiday camping trips occasions which he will remember all his life.

The topography of the region around Hanover is peculiarly diversified. Such a variety of land forms, such a display of hills and valleys of all sizes is seldom found. On every side of the College, within ten minutes' walk of the campus are the "vales," — small, winding valleys of dendritic pattern, which intermittent brooks have carved out from a flat clay plateau that once stretched far and wide over the valley. Here on the steep banks of the deeply intrenched Connecticut and its tributaries one finds in winter innumerable precipitous slopes down which to slide on skis or snowshoes, and natural winding gorges through which a toboggan whisks and turns as if on a Coney Island scenic railway. When a January thaw has formed a stiff crust on the snow blanket which covers, these miniature valleys, the ascent of even a short hillside requires much energy and skill, as the gyrations of any novice on. snowshoes or skis will testify. Ski jumping here seems the most natural and easy sport imaginable, until a trial of it shows the beginner that proficiency comes only when he has ceased to count spills and bruises. When at the close of the long winter the ravines seem to become suddenly transformed again from great icy canyons into little flowerstrewn hollows, they cease to call forth the best efforts from an able bodied man. He will turn now for exercise to the hills which overlook the valley. But he will not altogether forget the vales, for in them he has discovered a score of different forty-five minute walks for days when time is not available for longer outings.

Equally close to the threshold of the College is the river. Here between the pine-covered ridge and the Norwich border farms, it flows southward towards the sea, beckoning to restless spirits today as it beckoned to the adventurous John Ledyard in Revolutionary times, when he chopped out his great wooden canoe from the pine tree on the river bank and drifted down to Hartford. Unlike the classic John, however, the modern Tom, Dick, or Harry leaves Ms Ovid and his Greek testament (if he has one) in Fayerweather Hall, and satisfies himself merely with food and blanket and the other unintellectual of a week-end camping trip. Paddling upriver to camp out over night is a form of "peerade" in which nearly every Dartmouth man indulges at least once during his four years- in Hanover. And the old swimming hole up by Girl, Wand is a joyous place on many a hot June day.

The hilly upland that overlooks the valley can best be appreciated when seen through the eyes of a newly registered freshman, who sets out on first Sunday afternoon to, climb the highest hill he can see. Choosing a road that ascends from the plain and disappears among the rocky hills, the freshman proceeds on his first local journey of discovery with an increasing knowledge of his physical limitations in hill climbing and a rapidly increasing sense of the reality of that quality known as perseverance. Arrived at last with great self satisfaction at the hill top, he finds at the first glance that in every direction save that of the campus there are other hills, many of them higher than the one on which he stands. Here is food for thought. After he has spent a quarter of an hour in fully considering the situation and has turned to go home he will have come to realize that within a five-mile radius of the college there are hills enough to occupy his. Sunday afternoons and most of his free Saturdays for all of freshman year. Thereupon he will probably resolve that one hill a week will be his record. Of course he fails fully to carry out this resolution in the distracting weeks of the football season and the chinning season which follow; but he will nevertheless get out on the hills again about as often as the primitive desire to explore and discover seizes hold on him.

Few country districts are as full of roads as that around Hanover. The pastures and woods are tightly ensnared in a network of them. There are good roads and bad roads, dusty roads and rocks, roads bordered by prosperous farms and roads that vanished from the map a century ago and have only stone walls and cellar holes to mark their, courses. And yet all are alike in two respects; they show a reckless disregard for hills and they lead nowhere in particular. Within five miles of the College there are approximately one hundred and fifty miles of country road. Likewise, within an afternoon's walking distance are the wayside villages of Pompanoosuc, Hanover Center, Etna ("Etny" let-us spell it), Dothan and Jericho, not to mention the more pretentious centers of industry like Wilder, Lebanon, and "the June." Although these roads, for the most part, are lonely country cross roads, they are pretty well punctuated with those signs of •New England thrift and Yankee industry, the "general store," the blacksmith shop, the cider mill, the old town hall, the white church, and the district school. Among these roads is one of peculiar historic interest, — the old Wolfeboro road or College road, which was laid out in 1761 by King George's governor, to serve as a connection between Hanover and the outside world — not the world of nature, mind you, but the world of culture and of human affairs. In the dark years of revolution which followed, when the provincial governor was driven away from the land which he had begun so ambitiously to develop, the College road was neglected. The forest was allowed to creep across it and conceal its unused stretches; and the plough soon erased other pieces of it. where newer roads, more obedient to the dictates of topography, afforded easier paths for the farm wagon if not for the horseback rider. Today, instead of serving as a highway from the College out to the civilized world, the old Wolfeboro road serves as the most direct path to the back woods,— the trail over to the Outing Club cabin at Moose Mountain.

And still, this rich supply of hills and country roads for short local trips afield is not all that one finds at Hanover. The crowning feature of the region is the nearness of the higher mountains. It is only an eight mile tramp over the Wolfeboro road to the old triangular station on Moose Mountain, some 2500 feet above sea-level. By snatching an early breakfast of oatmeal and coffee and getting the first train south one may comfortably reach the top of Mt. Cardigan, eighteen miles away, in Canaan, or the somewhat higher apex of the cone of Mt. Ascutney, in Windsor, down the valley, where the barometer reads 3500 feet above the sea. A blanket and a well filled knapsack provide all that is necessary for sleeping out over night, if a fellow enjoys roughing it. Cube Mountain in Orford, eighteen miles up the valley and hardly eight miles from Fairlee station, offers a good all day tramp, a climb of some 2500 feet, and a splendid view of the higher mountains. Smart's, in Dorchester, is more of a climb, and little known except to hunter and fisherman; consequently it appeals particularly to seasoned and experienced trampers. Moosilauke, with its 4800 feet of altitude, by far the highest peak visible from the college tower, can be reached by taking an afternoon train north and returning late the next evening. From its summit one gets a very extended view of the central and southern portions of the White Mountains. Even the Franconia Mountains and the Presidential Range are within reach of Hanover in a few hours travel by rail; and the week-end mid-winter trip of the Outing Club to Mt. Washington offers s'port and adventure to ski runner and snow shoer that would be hard to match at any other eastern college.

James Walter Goldthwait, Hall Professor of Geology