Forty-one Harvard students hiked the White Mountains in New Hampshire this weekend, collectively covering 40 of the 48 4,000-foot peaks over the span of three days, as part of the First Annual Totally Awesome Wilderness Expedition (FATAWE).

The brainchild of Daniel A. Michalow ’04, FATAWE celebrated the 25th anniversary of the First-Year Outdoor Program (FOP).

Michalow conceived the idea of an expedition for Harvard undergrads following a trip in October covering the Presidential Traverse, a 26-mile hike spanning the 11 peaks that comprise New Hampshire’s Presidential Range,

“After that, I thought we should do a bigger expedition with the whole community,” he said.

Michalow, a FOP leader, also credited the trip’s inception to his experience with the first-year orientation program.  

“A lot of this comes from a love for FOP and for the FOP community. FOP is an incredible program run by amazing people who provide an extremely valuable service to Harvard,” he said.

And while FATAWE isn’t affiliated with FOP, Michalow added that a good number of participants are FOP leaders, with some students from the Harvard Outing Club.

Participant Karolina Maciag ’04 wrote in an e-mail that while Saturday was “cloudless and warm even up on the summits,” she still encountered snow.

“The first stretch was pretty snow-free—we were actually wondering if we’d get any snow or ice at all. Well, boy, did we get snow and ice!” she wrote. “It felt pretty surreal to be hiking in shorts and t’s—it was in the 70s even at above-3,000-ft elevation—while making our way over snow and falling in well above our knees at times when the snow was too soft and broke through under our weight,” Maciag wrote.

Lucas T. Laursen ’06 wrote in an e-mail that the trip was a nice respite from school.

“Within FATAWE, our trip was called the Northern Presidentials, but we took to calling ourselves ‘The 5000-Foot Club’ when we realized that all our peaks were over 5,000 feet and we would be gaining more than 5,000 feet in elevation in the same day,” he wrote.

For Michael P. Etzel ’06, FATAWE signaled an opportunity to spend some time hiking with other FOP leaders, as well as a rare occasion to appreciate the outdoors.

“FATAWE seemed like a great chance to get outside and off campus doing something I love with a great group of people with whom my time is otherwise generally limited to the beginning of the year with FOP trips,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Responsible for maintaining the FATAWE website, drawing up basic policies and emergency contact information, arranging hiking groups and organizing base camp, Michalow estimated that he invested around 200 hours in preparation for the hike—and missed 10 days worth of class.

But he justified the hours by pointing to safety and organization as tasks of major importance.