I Was A Freshman Trip Spy

We hired a writer to pass himself off as a student. The only problems were that he was 31 years old and a terrible liar.

I am 31 years old. I have a moustache, a receding hairline, and a rental car. I am no average freshman. I've come under cover, an outsider, to experience what 90 percent of the incoming class does—the annual, time-honored Dartmouth Outing Club's freshman trip. I've been blessed with almost no advance information; in fact, when I arrive in Hanover on September 10 I'm late for registration.

"Your name?" asks the student at the registration table in Robinson Hall. "Okay, you're in G-59, you guys are at McLane tonight. Got your swim trunks and a towel?" There must be some mistake, I say. I'm hiking. No. there will be a swim test in a half hour. Nobody told me about a swim test. I hate swim tests. The last time I took one I nearly drowned attempting to take my jeans off underwater. I'm told it's a requirement for graduation. I'm told the shorts I'm wearing will do fine.

As I linger on the front steps of Robo Hall, I see a sea of mingling, scrub-faced, happy-looking freshmen. Backpacks are Uttered everywhere. In the morning all of us will head for various parts of the north woods, on a three-day outing via kayaks or canoes or mountain bikes or our own two feet. I'm entered in advanced hiking, a fabled section, I'll soon learn. I reflect for a moment from this modest perch, admiring the group's innocence, their youth, their opportunity.... My spell is broken by a shaggy upperclassman who spies my presence, waves his arm firmly, and through the arena-strength P. A. system orders all "trippees" off the steps. That would be me.

We are told to follow a woman with a large knee brace across campus to the Bema for New Gaines. There are roughly 100 of us. In the shadow of the great pines of the outdoor amphitheater, we will, in a non-confrontative, non-embarrassing, non-injurious sort of way, learn something about each other. In the climactic game, one of maybe a half-dozen, we are told to find a partner and agree on two words that mean something to us. Then we will split up for opposite ends of the field, close our eyes, spin a few times, and try to find our partners by broadcasting our code words. There is something disconcerting about being a grown-up, a man of purpose and seriousness and profession, and blindly yelling "Springer! Springer! Springer!" In the hubbub of the moment I don't find "Spaniel" for a while either.

"Hey, you're not a shmen are you?'' says a guy who was "Naha" to his partner's "Kurdistan" (their summer trips) in the recently concluded exercise (a fact that makes me further regret I'd insisted on honoring my dog's heritage. I also understand why my partner was calling back rather mutedly).

"A shmen?" I say, as we head for the swimming pool.

"A freshman, you're not a freshman, are you?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm a freshman. Sort of a late bloomer."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-one."

"I knew you looked a little, ah, different. You're gonna make a lot of friends, though."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Sure, you can buy beer for everyone." We, the good members of G-59, meet

We, the good members of G-59, meet after the New Games, and the nine of us take the swim test together. We are first to swim and it turns out to be a gimme, only two laps with no time cut-off, no life-saving exercises, and no pants stripping. We've concluded a small but symbolically vital step: a degree requirement is out of the way.

Our trip leader is Chris, a genial English major and varsity cross-country skier from Anchorage. The group itself is impressively diverse. Andy, a native of Orlando, Florida, spent the summer as a schmaltzy tour guide for Disney World's Jungle Cruise. The summer before, he was an exchange student in Sakhalin Island, Siberia. Mia is from England but has also lived in Israel. I find this out after I tell my story.

Encouraged by my editors and discouraged by my wife ("You're a lousy liar"), I tell the group I've lived on a kibbutz in Israel for the last decade (actually, my brother has). I feel this is sufficiently exotic to explain why I'd foregone college. I'm satisfied the chances of a freshman having lived on or near a kibbutz are infinitesimal. I am wrong. This is Dartmouth.

"What's the name of your kibbutz?" says Mia, explaining that her mother lived in Haifa, as did she for a while.

"Maagan Michael," I say with an accent underscoring the fact I know no Hebrew and spent all of a week there in '83.

Mia draws a blank. She has never heard of it. Then she lights up. "Oh, oh, oh. You mean Maagan Michael," she says, providing a raspy, flawless enunciation.

I almost confess then and there. Instead I get vague. I paint a portrait of a worldtraveling drifter. Somebody with stops in every port. I get approving if confused nods from my section mates. Why would Dartmouth want him?

We awake to an electric guitar lick from hell. Dozens of us, scattered on mattresses in the McLane lounge, bolt up from nervous, light sleeps. A terrific thunder and lightning storm went on much of the evening, flooding the streets of Hanover and washing away, no doubt, whatever D. O. C. trips are unfortunate enough to be presently in the White Mountains. It could be a very long, wet three days. Oh, I'm in okay shape. But advanced hiking is legendary. It is the province of the future outdoors leaders of Dartmouth. Its section number, G-59, is included in song, and there are disturbing reactions from others. Over pizza the night before, a guy at an adjacent table overheard we were G-59. "You're in 59!" he lamented. "Oh man, bring some food. Really. A piece of bread, anything. You'll starve, I'm not kidding. I was a 59. It's brutal."

Mindful of the warning, most of us eat with abandon this morning. In a single bowl I pile Cheerios, granola, bananas—all blended together with what should have been milk but ends up being orange juice. I'm not the only one to make this mistake—it's dark when we hit the food tent outside Mclane—I may, however, be the lone one to swill it all down anyway.

By 9 a.m. we are on the bus with two other hiking sections, and two hours later we're at the trailhead to North Twin Mountain at the northern extreme of the Franconia Range. We've divvied up provisions and Chris has provided us with a map, trail descriptions, and assorted other inspirational tidbits, such as the lyrics to the latest Beastie Boys album.

The weather looks like it might clear. When we start out at 11 a.m. the trail is drenched, but it's not raining. Sparing a catastrophic injury, we're supposed to hike almost 25 miles in three days, bagging eight or nine 4,000-foot-plus peaks en route as "we blow by tourists." The first day looks like we might not even make it to the tourists. Nobody but Chris, myself, and Joe, a junior who is taking pictures for the Alumni Magazine (but who is pretending to be a yearbook photographer), is familiar with the characteristically steep and choppy White Mountain terrain.

Unfortunately, Joe wrenches his knee a few hours in. Not a terribly good sign. John, a Floridian with a deep aversion to cold and enough warm clothes to quell an Arctic front, has been saddled with his father's '65 armyissue backpack. John plans retribution for his dad all the way up. About the only one having fun is Kurt, a flatlander from the Chicago suburbs who strides above treeline so effortlessly he keeps up with Chris, who last year ran up 4,800-foot Moosilauke in 40 minutes.

It isn't all gloom and doom. We convince Andy to recite his 12-minute Jungle Cruise spiel. As we climb through mixed hardwoods, Andy begins with the Amazon, switches continents a few times between the Yangtze and the Nile, and is noting the heroic size and eating habits of an African elephant to our immediate right when we pass two befuddled and possibly insulted tourists who are taking a breather on our right. Not missing a beat, Andy moves along to the Ganges and a hundred hideous puns while Chris tries to explain to the hikers.

I'm also doing some backpedaling. Mia is keen to talk about Israel. I must miss it dearly, she says, herself becoming fondly nostalgic. She mentions friends, the Golan hills, and the upcoming elections. I mention the weather. Mia looks a little frustrated. "How long did you say you lived in Israel?"

We break for lunch in early afternoon, and there is a momentarily clear view of Lafayette and the rest of the Franconias, our future destinations. Then the winds start gusting, the clouds boil up, and shortly thereafter we run into a hiker who saw yesterday's "59 group." Whipped by the thunderstorms, the group didn't reach its shelter until 9 p.m. At which point, with a couple of group members having close calls with hypothermia, they decided to re-route their trip off the ridge. So, our lunch lasts five minutes.

Our time atop gorgeous South Twin, a peak radiated by hundreds of mountains and no roads within view, is even shorter. Chris wants to get to the shelter at Garfield before dark. An advance crew bolts ahead, leaving the others to rest and happily eat the Hawaiian granola and jellybeans. Alas, the shelter is taken. I'm a bit worried. John is too. He has a suggestion. "Let's storm it and take it by force." Chris counsels patience. Joe says not to worry, it won't rain. In fact, he promises.

And it doesn't. At least not in 99.9 percent of the White Mountains. Not at the shelter, for example, where we'd toasted marshmallows with another Dartmouth section (which claimed the shelter earlier in the afternoon). But our overflow campsite, set down amid funky alpine vegetation and leggy high pines, happens to be parked below a fulsome, moisture-rich cloud. Its moisture condenses on the trees, and as the winds gust over the mountainside we, the freshmen of Section 59, tarpless and tentless, are rained upon all night. I poke my head out of my sleeping bag now and again and am greeted by raindrops the size ofgumdrops. It's a long evening, and when we awake in the morning, our bags soaked and the air an ungracious 30-something degrees, there is general agreement on one thing: Next time, we take the canoe trip.

In spite of the tough start, the group gets along well. As we head out, and the sky begins to clear and our bodies warm, we all brighten. John's tales of hunting in Floridian swamps, while initially perplexing ("You hunt doves? The bird of peace?" chides Suzi), are funny. Chad, an exuberant Coloradan who takes the lead en route to the summit of Lafayette, cheerfully whistles, among other things, tunes from the "Wizard of Oz." Later, a bit bored and highly inquisitive, he falls back and, over the course of the day, asks the eight of us the singular question, "How's your love life?"

I tell Chad my love life is pretty straightforward. I'mmarried. He is overjoyed. "Wow! Sweeeet! I had no idea. You thinking about a family?"

Mia, whom I've avoided a bit as a trail partner for fear she'd press me on the details of my life as a banana laborer, says she saw the wedding band on my left hand but didn't know what to make of it. Israelis didn't wear wedding bands, right? Most, I say, shrinking a bit.

Later, when we reach our day-two campsaturday, site below Mt. Liberty, Chad makes an announcement: "Hey, everyone, guess what? Todd's married." I am no longer simply a 31year-old oddity. I am a spectacle.

We get to our campsite at Mt. Liberty by late afternoon and score the primo site. The pre-dinner hours are spent rehearsing the steps to the traditional "Salty Dog Rag," sunning, and seeing if Chris can indeed recite the Beastie Boys lyrics from memory. He can. In a few hours, folks will arrive from a half-dozen campsites, clamber up the smooth rock face above our site, and watch a muted, pink sun sink behind Mt. Moosilauke. Venus rises on the horizon minutes later. Then Saturn.

Our luck is also definitely on the rise. We are raided, a.k.a. showered with cookies (Chips Ahoys and Oreos) and ice cream, twice at this campsite—once by Chris's ski buddies and then by two others who scream us awake at midnight. Silhouetted beneath a full harvest moon, they drop pints of Ben & Jerry's at our nose tips, and later, exhausted from their three-mile ascent, nest between sleeping bags for warmth and rest. Their arrival is a shock, though not quite so bad as the klutzy Boy Scouts who nearly trampled us earlier in the evening when they were looking for their site—and definitely not as bad as those unfortunate freshmen on other trips who will be raided awake on this night to the frightful whine of a D.O.C. chainsaw.

The raids are a freshmen-trip tradition. So are little foul-ups, like glitchy stoves or bad water or getting lost. Chris says he was on this same trip two years ago when he broke his wrist near the summit of Lafayette.

Our trip, however, is remarkably glitchfree. We have folks with walnut and bee allergies, and yet we get through a few pounds of granola and several hornets' nests unscathed. Oh, the meals are a bit funky—the margarine/tabouli stew comes to mind—but hey, that's camping. There are no dark, uncontrollable fears. Chris says, on the first trip he led, one freshman bitterly complained about sleeping under the stars, fearful of renegade deer and moose with nothing better to do in the middle of the night than to dance on her head. On the other hand, maybe we're too loose. When I wake up, each of our heads is punctuated by a drippy, half-eaten pint of Ben & Jerry's, not to mention the Breyer's chocolate-chip halfgallon that Chris had packed in with the chem lab's dry ice and had left roughly in the center of our camp. "Not exactly a bear-safe campsite," observes Joe.

By now the talk is of getting out. Everyone knows good times await at the Ravine Lodge on the shoulder of Moosilauke, and we head for home just after 6 a.m. The bus will be at the trailhead on the Kancamagus Highway at 11. I pause at the peak of Mt. Liberty for a few extra moments, absorbed by the 100-mile views and the low clouds draped over the valleys like fresh drops of snow.

At trail's end in Lincoln Woods the group is elated. We've marched straight out, sevenplus miles. Mia is beaming ear to ear. Joe is soaking his feet by a stream. Suzi, is in the stream. The water temperature is maybe 40 degrees. She is, we all agree, out of her mind.

Meanwhile, I'm tired. I'm not sure I'm up for the Ravine Lodge. I'm not sure I want to do the Salty Dog. I know I don't want to drink the leftover cheesecake mix, powdered milk, and jello mix—a suggestion Chris has made in the name of devouring all eatables, another D.O.C. tradition. I think, rather, I might like to sleep. Maybe for a couple of days. I'd like to shower, a no-no at the Lodge. I'd also like to eat three straight meals, none of which involves granola.

The lodge is draped in sunshine, the crew on high alert. As we are exuberantly welcomed by men and women—upperclassmen, no lesswho look like the cast of "Godspell," I get a second wind. Above is the east peak of Moosilauke, in front is a large lawn, and inside somewhere lasagna is rumored to be cooking. We play volleyball, practice a skit for dinner, and work on our Salty Dog. Mia suggests my adeptness might be explained by the Salty Dog's similarity to a popular Israeli folk dance. I nod dumbly.

I am at the foot of the stairs to the dining room when the dinner bell rings. So is our entire team. There is lasagna, minestrone, salad, and extra servings of all. The lodge crew is dressed in phenomenal getups. A woman in a head-to-toe cow outfit is serving me milk, many glasses of milk. A man in a pink afro brings on the fresh shucked corn, another may or may not have a full service of silverware in his beard. There is lovely chaos as warm, easily recognizable food is gobbled and as the crew breaks into campy, rampaging ditties, including a zany ode to our dessert spoons, an adaption of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" ("Moosilaukian Rhapsody"), and the D.O.C. traditional, "McTavish is Dead." We are invited afterward to join the crew in the kitchen and slip our dishes under soapy water and dance madly to a supersonic "My Sharona, as we conga our way to an exit. I vow then and there to wire the stereo into my kitchen.

I don't even have qualms about taking part in a skit our group performs this evening, a wilderness take-off on the cable TV show "Studs." In fact, I even momentarily consider volunteering to dress up in drag. Something is happening to me, something a bit hard to explain. All I can say is that sometime around midnight—after I have squaredanced for two hours to the call of Everett Blake and am throwing my arms heavenward to "Gloria! Gloria!", I realize I am in a position I never would have anticipated.

The evening ends with the traditional ghost story and the murderous legend of Doc Benton. The chilling, hour-plus tale, combined with massive fatigue and the timely, curdling screams of the omnipresent lodge crew, is sufficiently scary to convince all those who planned on hiking up Moosilauke and camping under the stars to hustle back to their bunks at the Ravine Lodge. The night before, the lodge crew had exacted a terrific toll by sneaking up behind folks and pressing cold, clammy vegetables on the vulnerable necks offreshmen at opportune moments in the story.

I come clean after breakfast the next morning. After the green eggs and ham and a lodge crew reading—Dr. Seuss, of course—I tell everyone I won't be matriculating with the class of '96. I tell them most of what I've said is true, and that I faked my identity only to get the unblemished experience. The group is shocked. "You're kidding, right?" asks Chris. Everyone wants to know what is true and what isn't. "You didn't live in Israel?" asks Mia. "Of course! I wondered why you changed the subject every time." Begins Andy, "Hey, Todd...your name is Todd?"

If there is a mild sense of betrayal, it seems to pass quickly. I climb Moosilauke with Chris and Andy before the bus comes. When we are dropped off at Robo Hall, saying our goodbyes and exchanging addresses, somebody cues up the turntable. It's the Salty Dog. As everyone begins to disperse, the members of G-59 step onto the lawn. You take two steps forward and two steps back....

Todd Balf is a correspondentfor Outside magazine.

The author was sent on the toughest trip.But that was the least of his difficulties.

The spyhimself.

The group was supposed to cover25 miles over eight or nine peats.

I'm satisfiedthe chances ofa freshmanhaving lived onor near a kibbutzare infinitesimal.I am wrong.This isDartmouth.

Mia's kibbutzing nearly blew Balf s cover.

I tell Chad mylove life is prettystraightforward.I'm married. Heis overjoyed.

At Moosilauke upperclassmen fell into theircharge's arms.

There is lovelychaos as warm,easily recognizablefood is gobbledand as the crewbreaks intorampaging ditties.

In a singlebowl I pileCheerios, granola,and bananas...all blendedtogether withwhat should havebeen mi Ik butends up beingorange juice.

Firday, 5:45 a.m.

Saturday, 6 a.m.

Sunday, daybreak

Epilogue