ROCKS AND HARD PLACES

The requirements are simple for hikers participating in next month's 18-day coed wilderness adventure in White Mountain National Forest and its environs. The teenagers must be in good physical condition and have some backpacking experience and a keen desire to learn new skills. On the first day, the guides will have no trouble spotting the less experienced ones among their eight charges. Though burdened with a 45-to-50-lb. backpack, the uninitiated typically try to forge ahead of their more experienced comrades. After the first breathless leg, however, they'll be pacing themselves like pros.

"The goal of this youth program and 48 others is for kids to come away with a solid understanding of the activities, an appreciation for what they've done for themselves, and a respect for the environment with which they've interacted," says Greg Auch, education field coordinator for the Appalachian Mountain Club, one of the nation's oldest nonprofit conservation and recreation organizations.

Of course, these 14-to-17-year-olds won't be traversing the entire forest, which skips back and forth across the New Hampshire-Maine border. Most of the action in this $1400 program will occur in the rugged Mahoosuc Range. They'll construct "water bars" from felled timber or rocks to divert water from the trails, and create rock-filled wood boxes, called cribs, to raise the treadways above marsh lines. They may even repair the Appalachian Trail, which runs through the middle of the range.

Their reward will be lessons in rock climbing and hikes to high valleys, including spectacular Mahoosuc Notch. There, they just might get to taste the fruit of the cloudberry bush. One plant produces just one berry, which tastes sweeter than a boysenberry. They'll also find ice caves where they can retreat from the sun--unless there's a July snowfall that day (it's happened). Canoeing on the Rangeley Lakes affords stunning views and a chance to glimpse the moose, ospreys and bald eagles that inhabit the shores.

And every night before the adventurers retire to their tents, they'll put their food and other fragrant items like toothpaste in a sack and hang it on a tree--lest the king of the woodlands, the black bear, pay them a visit while they sleep.

Appalachian Mountain Club, 603-466-2727