Return to Jobildunk Ravine

For the second time in three days I headed into Mount Moosilauke's Jobildunk Ravine for some off-trail exploration. One of my objectives was to find the remnants of the Dartmouth Outing Club's Jobildunk Cabin, which was built in 1931 but was effectively isolated by massive blowdowns in the ravine caused by the September 1938 hurricane. Much of the fallen timber was salvaged by the Parker-Young Company a few years later but eventually the cabin was abandoned and fell into disrepair.

 

I stumbled upon the collapsed remains of the cabin on my first trip into the ravine in 1990, but did not locate it on my visit earlier this week. After some additional research I headed in for another try. This 1934 DOC map (downloaded from the Rauner Library's "Granite State in Maps") shows Jobildunk Cabin and several other long-abandoned DOC cabins and shelters. 

This barrel, located beside the Asquam Ridge Trail, is a relic of the Parker-Young logging operation in the mid-1940s.

Bear sign along an open section of the old Asquamchumauke Trail, abandoned in 1973.

After some searching on the floor of the valley, I found the old cabin site.

A few artifacts were strewn about the area. (Note that the land in here and the artifacts thereon are the property of Dartmouth College. Also note that overnight camping and fires are not allowed.)

The D.O.C. column in the January 1932 issue of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine reported on the new cabin: "In Jobildunc Ravine on the side of Moosilauke where Baker River tumbles hecticly through a wild and wooded region, logs were cut for a cabin on the twenty-third of May. Work continued at odd times during the summer and at the present time the cabin is complete, and ready for use. A two hour's hike from the nearest road over the roughest kind of going this is the most isolated cabin of the chain. When one considers the fact that it lies in the midst of some of the wildest Outing Club country and was built entirely by student work, any of its shortcomings are immediately forgotten."

Another report from that era made note of a "swimming pool" on the Baker River.

In the December 1938 issue of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, J. Willcox Brown, later to become a pre-eminent forest historian of Moosilauke, wrote: "Jobildunk Ravine was thought to have come through the cyclonic disturbance unscathed because only the protected eastern flank of the Ravine could be seen from the ridge of the Mountain by parties headed up to repair the damaged Summit Camp. The first survey party to Jobildunk Cabin learned a sadly different story when they attempted to reach the Cabin by the eerie light of a cloud-dimmed full moon. Beginning at Camp 3, most of the large trees were down. When the trail reached the area which had not been previously lumbered, it disappeared completely. Only by slow and arduous struggle up the treechoked river-bed could the cabin be reached. Behind the cabin the old look-out tree stands almost as a lone sentinel over a desolate waste of down-timber....The area around Jobildunk Cabin, including the Asquamchumauke River Trail will have to be abandoned until such time as this tract can be lumbered by the company which owns it."

Beyond the cabin site I bushwhacked north towards the southern of two beaver ponds/meadows on the broad upper floor of the ravine. I had visited the northern of these two days earlier.

I wandered through semi-open areas with standing dead trees; one spot offered a view up to Mount Blue.

The woods on the western side of the ravine provided better going than I had found on the eastern side on the previous trip.

 

I arrived at the meadow (this one is no longer a pond) under skies hazed over by wildfire smoke.

I found a dry spot to sit and take in the partial view of the ravine headwall and its rock slabs/slides.

 

Wide-angle view.

Towards the end of my stay the sun burned through the haze, and blue sky emerged.

The sun brought out the vivid greens of the meadow.

Heading back through fern-filled boreal forest.

Following one of several moose paths that I encountered.

Homeward bound on the Asquam Ridge Trail.