With the D.O.C.
NOTABLE among the summer activities of D.O.C. members were the trips of Richard P. Nickelsen '49, Donald B. Wales '46, Robert Griffith '50, Charles D. Vanderhof '49, Douglas Carter '49, Martin B. Person '51, David A. White '50, and Warren Povey '49. In addition a score or more members climbed in the Teton Range, near Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Nickelsen and Wales were members of a U. S. Weather Bureau expedition to Greenland and other far northern outposts. The purpose of the expedition was supply and to relocate certain U.S. weather bases in the far north. Griffith and Vanderhoof worked with one section that was concerned with the unloading of supplies at Thule, Greenland, from the icebreaker Wyandotte.
Douglas Carter '49 spent his three months in the Yukon area in Alaska with a U.S. Geological Survey Permafrost Expedition. The expedition studied the nature, depth and location of permafrost, the permanently frozen ground which lies under vast stretches of the arctic regions. Doug also participated in the study of the overlying vegetation, the abundant animal life and the geomorphology of the area. To reach their base camp near the town of Beaver, on the Yukon River ten miles south of the Arctic Circle, the party went by Army glider, towed by a C-54 transport.
Person bad the good fortune to be party to Commander MacMillan's expedition on the schooner Bowdoin in its northernmost penetration of the Arctic in the Commander's 27 years of Arctic exploration. The expedition reached as far as 78°45' North. In passing the Perry monument, on the northern tip of Greenland, Person found a record of the last known visitors to that point. This record was signed by David C. Nutt '41, a member of the Bartlett expedition in 1940 who is now on the College Museum staff. It was through Nutt, that Person had this opportunity to make the MacMillan trip. Person's official position was that of collector of birds and mammals for the Dartmouth College Museum. His success is indicated by his return with over 60 specimens.
White and Povey left Hanover in a Model A Ford, reputedly held together by baling wire and adhesive tape, headed for Fairbanks, Alaska, 5000 miles away. While wheezing up the Alaska Highway in the vicinity of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, they crossed the trail of Elmer Harp, College Archaeologist, who was working in the area with the Andover-Harvard Yukon Expedition.
The traditional Dartmouth summer climbing expeditions in the Western United States began early this year when Phillip puchner '44 and Alan N. Hall '47 "opened the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club summer climbing season (Western Division)" with a ski ascent of Galena Peak in the Idaho Sawtooth Range on May 3. The Dartmouth group in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, was larger than ever this year as over a score of Dartmouth climbers took advantage of superb weather in Grand Teton National Park during July and August to make many successful climbs. With base camps at Jenny Lake and climbing camps high in the canyons below the peaks, various groups scaled all the major peaks by regular routes as well as several ascents on the more hazardous ridges and faces.
Back in Hanover, under the able guidance of James Schwedland '48 a three-man trail crew of Charles Nadler '51, Franklin Johnson '51, and Frank Dunbaugh, Harvard '51, tackled the perennial problem of cabin cleanup and renovation. Intensive work was done on the northern cabins, with particular emphasis on the remodeled stable at the Ravine Camp, known as the Undergrad Cabin.
Freshmen who could not be accommodatedon the overcrowded September Freshman Tripwere introduced to Mt. Moosilauke on October 16, basing their operations at the RavineCamp. While the rest of the College hot-footedoff to the football games during the latter partof October, a few hardy souls trekked to Mt.Washington and others were properly mystified on one of the far-famed Mystery Trips of"Baptiste" McKenney. The lOCA organized ajoint trip on October 29, which was also heldat the Ravine Camp.
