Magic Mountain
IT all begins with Freshman Trip. The weary freshman gets off the bus, his face stained with the sweat of several days on the trail. He walks down the gravel path to the Ravine Lodge, enters the main room, and looks around. On the walls are decades of weathered trail signs, skiing awards, and Winter Carnival posters. Above are the massive spruce logs which support the roof, timbers from 300-year-old trees of a size seldom found today. He looks through the window to where the ridges ascend, rising from several sides ever higher until they meet at the invisible summit. Even now he may begin to experience the affection with which so many Dartmouth people have regarded this building and this mountain. As he returns over the years, Moosilauke becomes a part of him, and he in turn becomes a part of Moosilauke.
For the mountain preserves a record of all that has passed and the people who have walked her slopes. Upon the summit lie the remains of the old Tip Top House, built in 1860 as a hotel, and later operated by the Dartmouth Outing Club. Across the Baker River can be found the bed of the gravity railroad with which William Park first logged this valley in 1901. In the variations of age and species of trees on the hillsides the outlines of the various timber cuttings, logging roads, and old ski runs can be seen. The lodge itself is tribute to the loving craftsmanship with which Ross McKenney and his crew built it in 1938, and to those who since then have added improving touches. Some would claim that the very atmosphere of the mountain contains a spirit; the Pemigewasset Indians called it Gitchie Manito, and today's chubbers call it Doc Benton.
Dartmouth people justifiably identify with Moosilauke as their own mountain. In addition to the summit and the original Hell's Highway tract purchased by the Dartmouth Alumni Outing Club in 1933, the College acquired two other tracts in 1964 through the generosity of Pennington Haile '24, and now has title to around 2,000 acres. Included within this area are the South and East Peaks, wilder and less often visited than the main peak, and the head of Jobildunk Ravine, one of the few U-shaped glacial ravines in New Hampshire. The hiker's reaction to Jobildunk, with its cold temperatures, monstrous boulders, and krummholtzframed headwall, is always one of being an intruder into one of nature's private domains. All of this land is to be preserved in a natural state, no longer logged, a wilderness sanctuary for solitude and wonderment, and an outdoor laboratory for the study of the forest system's natural harmony and balance. From the deciduous forest at her base to the treeless alpine zone, Moosilauke is a continuity of changing ecosystems, and offers a unique opportunity for environmental education. To preserve it for these purposes and from overuse by an increasing number of visitors, camping and outdoor fires were banned in 1972. After narrowly escaping the effects of a planned major ski development on adjoining property five years ago, the College now has expressed an interest in making sure that the land-use of the remaining private forest on the upper Baker River is brought into conformity with that of surrounding Dartmouth and National Forest lands.
The past few years mark the beginning of a new chapter in the saga of Dartmouth-at-Moosilauke. After more than a decade of sitting locked in silent abandonment for most of the year, the Ravine Lodge now hums with activity. Under the management of C. Allison Merrill, director of outdoor affairs, numerous health and safety improvements authorized by the College Trustees have been completed. These include the installation of fire exits and smoke detectors, a new stove, and a leachfield below the building, which provides flat space for a boulder-free volleyball court. To replace the old Natt Emerson bunkhouse, burned intentionally in 1973 because of frost-heave damage, two new bunkhouses have been finished, and a third is under construction. There are plans for kitchen renovation.
Formerly available only for group reservations, the lodge is now once again open from June 15 to September 1, with sleeping accommodations and meal service for anyone in the Dartmouth community. This past summer a lodge crew headed by Jack Noon '6B, with Mary Heller '76 as cook, served a variety of delectable dishes to a variety of appreciative guests, including students, alumni and staff, some of whom may have just dropped in for the evening.
This regular service was spotlighted by several special programs. For two weeks in August, the lodge was home to a small group of campers in a small-scale revival of Camp Jobildunk. Co-directed by Pam Reed, who coaches the Dartmouth women's ski team, and Jack Noon, the camp taught a variety of woodcraft skills and included an overnight trip to the College Grant.
In the middle of September, the Dartmouth Outing Club Alumni Trips Program, headed by Michael Zischke '77, gave over 50 alumni the opportunity for hiking, canoeing, and outdoor enjoyment, as well as movies and general good times. Mike said he was surprised at how few participants had been Outing Club chubbers as undergraduates, but that most nonetheless boldly forged their way to the summit despite inclement weather.
The Dartmouth Outward Bound Center has used the Moosilauke area for student "solo" trips, during which each participant remains isolated in the woods for several days as one link in a process of self-discovery. This year Outward Bound also used one of the new bunkhouses as a base for its adult education course, in which area secondary school teachers digested outdoor skills and learning techniques to pass on to their students.
Since 1961, every member of the Dartmouth men's ski team has run up Moosilauke's 2.7-mile Gorge Brook Trail in less than 50 minutes. This fall, braving icy trails, freezing winds, and frost feathers near the top, several skiers emerged above treeline clad in gym shorts and tennis shoes, passing the summit just in time to beat a hasty retreat to the shelter of the evergreens. Despite the wintry weather, all finished in under 46 minutes, and the heat generated by their efforts probably combined to raise the Grafton County air temperature by at least three degrees.
Living at the Ravine Lodge for the past few summers have been research teams under the supervision of Professor William Reiners of the Biology Department. Projects have included an attempt to quantify the nutrients entering the soil of various vegetation zones, a study of fir waves, and the setting up of weather stations at different elevations. Several individual students have undertaken research projects at Moosilauke, and academic courses of long duration, using the lodge as a classroom and living base, are in the planning stages.
The high point of the Ravine Lodge's year is still Freshman Trip, for it is then that all divisions of the Outing Club combine with Moosilauke to welcome a new infusion of nutrients into the cycle of its fellowship. What Dartmouth man or woman cannot remember vividly every moment of those few days, when every experience is new and every sense alert and absorbing it all. Almost two thirds of the Class of 1980 began Dartmouth careers by eating hearty dinners prepared by the ski team kitchen crew - "famous for fine food" - joining in songs led by Dean Ralph Manuel '58, perhaps square dancing to the voice of veteran DOC caller Everett Blake of Orford, and screaming over the exploits of Doc Benton, as told by Thomas Carter '77, DOC president. It is through this experience more than any other that Moosilauke touches the lives of so many Dartmouth people, and helps to make Dartmouth truly unique.
WHATEVER brings people to Moosilauke the main attraction is still the presence of the mountain itself. Those who come often have an opportunity to observe and become a part of the cycle of her seasons. For a month in mid-summer, the usually brown alpine zone turns green for a brief growing season. Along the trail, blades of grass tickle a climber's bare legs in the warm sun. The forest is cool and green with ferns under the hardwoods, and in the old logging camps wild strawberries, blackberries, and finally raspberries can be picked. In late summer the cool wind brings days of crisp, clear air and limitless views, alternating with days of heavyhanging mist, which forces one's attention to the close-up scenes: beads of water on leaves, moss and roots on the boulders, and raindrop patterns in the brook. In October the foliage flares up in a blaze of glory, covering the hills with a red, orange, and yellow awning before letting go and falling to the ground. The color fades and the brown leaves blow across the trail as the temperature drops. Ice slivers fall out of the evergreens above, coating the ground with a sugary frosting. The soil freezes, lifting small pebbles like flowers on verticle stalks of ice. Snow falls, hiding all the footprints and preserving them for spring.
A few skiers, disillusioned by the commercialism of other places, still come to Moosilauke to glide across the frozen bogs in the ravine, or climb the old Carriage Road to the summit. The downy quilt of snow absorbs every sound but the swish of the skis. The firs, with their laden branches drooping, appear as huddled pilgrims marching along the trail. As the chill bites through his facemask, the climber observes wind-sculpted ice statues on the leeward side of the trees.
The snow layer thaws and re-freezes on the mountain, and in spring, when the final thaw comes, the glaze of corn snow is merely a camouflage for the river covering the entire hillside beneath. Streams grow to torrents of water, ice, and logs. With the blinding sun high in the sky, the mud appears black by contrast with the remaining white patches. Last autumn's shallow footprints betray the hiker as he steps down and sinks in to his knees. But the soil dries, and in April or May the buds on the twigs begin to open. A bloom of pea-green creeps up the mountain, leaving summer in its wake. The seasons have come and gone, and it is in the constancy of the mountain's changes that the visitor most feels a sense of permanence, so seemingly separate from, yet so inter-related to the headlong advance of the modern world.
This summer on July 4, the lodge crew, of which I was a part, got up at 4:00 a.m. to climb Mt. Moosilauke and observe the Bicentennial sunrise. The stones on the path flickered in the beams of our flash-lights. Looking back at the lodge from across the river, I was reminded of the many times I had thought of it as a personality in itself. Its- windows shining like a lighthouse beacon in somber dignity, it stood tall against the night, gazing up toward the mountain. Uncluttered by the commercialism surrounding the nation's birthday, my genuinely patriotic sentiment began to dominate me, and I hummed the Battle Hymn of the Republic and thought of great orchestral swells by Charles Ives and Aaron Copland. As we neared the upper bowl of Gorge Brook a rosy glow appeared on the eastern horizon, and the gracefully curved summit of Moosilauke appeared above us in an expectant pre-dawn blue. The leaves turned from black profile to green with the approaching day, and the trees receded from our vision as we emerged on top just in time to see the first rays of the sun appear from behind the dome of Mount Washington. The Connecticut Valley below us was still clothed in mist, with occasional hills peeking up like islands above the clouds. To the noi;th the fog was flowing like a glacier through Kinsman Notch, with the purple White Mountains forming the horizon. Like a radio station just coming on the air, we sang the national anthem while waving the flag, then retreated sleepily to breakfast at the Ravine Lodge.
Reborn: the Ravine Lodge, approaching its 40th birthday, has a new lease on life.
On top of old Moosilauke: a flag salute to the dawn of America's 200th birthday.
Bernie Waugh '74 took time off from lawschool to spend the last five months working with the Office of Outdoor Affairs atthe College. A square dance fiddler of localfame, he also is preparing a book of NorthCountry ballads.
