Vacation on the Dartmouth Mountain

$12 per Week Buys Bed and Board and a Wilderness at Moosilauke

SUPPER TIME, Wednesday, June 13th will find Ford Sayre '33, chief cook and general manager of Dartmouth's Ravine Camp at Moosilauke piling the long trestle table with mountains of hot corn bread, an enormous roast, an even more enormous crock of beans, until the table again bows in that authentic sag it had through the winter season that ended with April, and once again the echo of his bellow "Co-o-o-me and get it" will roll up Gorge Ravine toward the summit.

Ten volunteer axemen—graduate and undergraduate—will pull up to the table presided over by Ford and Peggy Sayre and foreman Ned Johnson. Three or four young faculty people from Hanover, a New York alumnus and his boy, a couple of members of the Boston D. O. C. on a week's vacation will round out the group.

It will be the opening day of the summer season—the Alumni Outing Club's first summer season—and discussion of the summer's plans and hopes will last long after dishes have been cleared away.

The ten axemen have been drifting into camp for the past three days. Second semester examinations ended today; blue books are forgotten, and argument rages over the relative virtues of and 4 lb. axe heads, of 36 inch and 38 inch hickory handles. Ford spreads out a map on the table and all hands pour over the blue and red pencilled lines that mark the summer's work. That new summer trail to the Seven Cascades in Gorge Ravine and thence to the Summit will get a lot of travel. The longer route through the big timber in Jobildunk Ravine to the Headwall and the Summit will be the best of the bunch. Those marks along the Baker River indicate where larger trout pools and hideouts are to be built this summer under Tom Dent's expert direction.

Will the Ridge Trail, swing the circle around the skyline rim of the big mountain bowl be tackled this summer? Probably not—we can't afford to feed that many workers—and work on the new entrance trail or road, if we can put it in good enough shape to call it a road before the summer ends, is much more important.

This new entry route will strike the National Forest's Warren-Woodstock road (now under CCC construction) at a point only a mile and a half from the Ravine Camp. The Forest Service road—a good one with gravel surface—will be in condition as far as our junction by late summer and it will be plowed all winter, according to recent report. Even if we don't get our mile and a half in condition for auto traffic, the difficulty of getting into the Ravine will be cut in half before another winter.

And a large open gentle practice slope for next winter's skiers will have preference over the Ridge Trail in the summer's program. We're going to have some easy and moderate skiing right behind camp next winter. A "ski-tow" to haul people up hill? Well, perhaps—if we obtain funds; the committee have had more volunteers than they can "grubstake," and when every 60 cents means a day's food and supplies for another enthusiastic worker, we must take advantage of it.

It's a big program—the chopping on the summer trails starts tomorrow—so Ford rolls up his map and heads his volunteers for the bunk rooms.

The Boston men and the New York alumnus and his boy are joining forces for a trip to the Summit House tomorrow where they plan to spend a day if the weather is good. Ford helps them plan out the rest of their week—a different trail, and different peak or cascade or mountain brook for objective each day, if they want it. Their week at Dartmouth's reservation is costing them fia.oo each including the day at the Summit Camp—also Dartmouth operated. Twenty of the thirty comfortable bunks at the Ravine Camp are being saved for Dartmouth men, their boys and their friends who want a week's genuine vacation, or who have a day or so to come and see Dartmouth's unique mountain reservation. The pantry is well stocked, the kitchen stove is always hot—so come any time. And if you don't get there this summer, plan now for a winter vacation at Moosilauke.

Having secured the approval of the Alumni Council for the proposed promotion of an alumni project the group that is sponsoring the development at Moosilauke went ahead with their plans a year ago. During the last summer the major operation was the cutting of a trail more than two miles long from high up on the south shoulder of the mile-high mountain to a camp at the bottom. The ski trail was enthusiastically endorsed by several hundred who flocked to Moosilauke during the winter. Dartmouth men predominated in these groups but men and women of other colleges found the skiing at the Alumni Outing Club's outpost the most thrilling of any in the mountains. Those who visit the comfortable camp this summer will find the crew busy at the task of clearing land on the lower slopes of the mountain for practice runs. The only criticism that the Club has had in its first year of operation has been that "there isn't any place for the novice skier to practice." The lower slopes of varying degrees of difficulty will provide skiers with all they could ask for.

Making Ski Trails on Moosilauke

Clerk of the Dartmouth Alumni Outing Club