Workers at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge hosted a retirement party for an elderly man and 60 of his friends and relatives in June. He requested that the Lodge Crew cook him a turkey, and when it came out of the oven, he dressed the cooked bird in scientific goggles and a chef's hat and paraded it around the Lodge's giant dining hall. His guests cheered and danced in celebration.
For the seven Dartmouth students and alums that make up this summer's Lodge Crew, the man who dressed and danced with a turkey was an unusual guest, but not necessarily the strangest of the summer. After all, it's hard to top the Dartmouth alumnus who got married on the Lodge's leech field and had his wedding march played on kazoos.
Since June 10, Vicki Allen '06, Norah Lake '06, Anne Raymond '06, Sarah Markus '07, Dan Megill '07, Whitney Coombs '09 and Sarah Van Dyke '09 have worked as Lodge Crew members.
The Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, which is open to the public from mid-May to mid-October, provides "rustic mountain accommodations" for vacationers who want to experience a scenic wilderness getaway, according to Allen.
The Lodge Crew members take turns cooking, manning the phones and front desk, washing dishes and doing maintenance projects. They rotate tasks from day to day, and for every 11 days that they work, they get three days off.
"It's a really good summer job," Van Dyke said. "There's a lot of variety, and even [washing the dishes], which you'd expect to be really boring, isn't so bad."
Visitors can pay to stay for as long as the Lodge is open and has vacancies, whether for single nights, weeks at a time or just one home-cooked dinner. Allen said that sometimes hikers will even pop in just to fill up water bottles on their way up Mount Moosilauke.
Depending on the day and the rotation schedule, a Crew member might wake up between 6:30 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. to cook breakfast for whomever spent the night. Breakfast is served at 7:30 a.m., and afterwards Crew members clean the dishes. If they don't have Lodge projects to do, the Crew has free time from about 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., when they set the tables for new sets of dinner guests. During their free time, Crew members might hike, read, hang out together on the porch or visit nearby towns, Allen said.
On weeknights, the Lodge hosts between 10 to 15 dinner guests. On weekends, the Lodge Crew serves between 60 and 80 people each night, which is a complicated task that can be draining for Crew members, especially when large dinner crowds show up for multiple consecutive nights.
Lodge Crew members report that for the most part, however -- in spite of the occasional quirky guest or overwhelming dinner list -- life at the Lodge is peaceful and relaxing.
"We had five days in a row where we were serving more than 70 people each night, and it was exhausting," Van Dyke said. "But mostly it's a nature-y and calm life. It's nice and simple."
Lodge Crew members live together in the Crew loft above the kitchen.
"The loft itself is a very tight space so you better get along really well with other Crew members," Megill said.
Megill added that though he's ready to return to classes and civilization, he's going to miss the Lodge and life with his fellow Crew members.
"It'll be kind of a bummer to leave," he said. "You're friends with the people in the environment. You can never quite come back to the same place."
