Monadnock as an arctic isle in the sky.

June 2. 

June 2, 2018

8.30 A. M. — Start for Monadnock. 

Between Shirley Village and Lunenburg, I notice, in a meadow on the right hand, close to the railroad, the Kalmia glauca in bloom, as we are whirled past. The conductor says that he has it growing in his garden. 

Blake joins me at Fitchburg. Between Fitchburg and Troy saw an abundance of wild red cherry, now apparently in prime, in full bloom, especially in burnt lands and on hillsides, a small but cheerful lively white bloom. 

Arrived at Troy Station at 11.5 and shouldered our knapsacks, steering northeast to the mountain, some four miles off, —its top. It is a pleasant hilly road, leading past a few farmhouses, where you already begin to snuff the mountain, or at least up-country air. 

By the roadside I plucked, now apparently in prime, the Ribes Cynosbati, rather downy leaved, and, near by, the same with smooth berries. I noticed, too, 'the Salix lucida, by the roadside there on high land; the S. rostrata, etc., were common. 

Almost without interruption we had the mountain in sight before us, — its sublime gray mass — that antique, brownish-gray, Ararat color. Probably these crests of the earth are for the most part of one color in all lands, that gray color of antiquity, which nature loves; color of unpainted wood, weather-stain, time-stain; not glaring nor gaudy; the color of all roofs, the color of things that endure, and the color that wears well; color of Egyptian ruins, of mummies and all antiquity; baked in the sun, done brown. 

Methought I saw the same color with which Ararat and Caucasus and all earih’s brows are stained, which was mixed in antiquity and receives a new coat every century; not scarlet, like the crest of the bragging cock, but that hard, enduring gray; a terrene sky-color; solidified air with a tinge of earth. [Best view of mountain about two and a half miles this side of summit.] 

The red elder was in full bloom by the road, apparently in prime.

We left the road at a schoolhouse, and, crossing a meadow, began to ascend gently through very rocky pastures. Previously an old man, a mile back, who lived on a hilltop on the road, pointed out the upper corner of his pasture as a short way up. Said he had not been up for seven years and, looking at our packs, asked, “Are you going to carry them up?” “Well,” said he, with a tone half of pity and lIalf regret, adding, “ I shall never go up again.” 

Here, at the base, by the course of a rocky rill, where we paused in the shade, in moist ground, I saw the Tiarella cordifolia, abundant and apparently in prime, with its white spike sometimes a foot and more high; also the leaves of the Geranium Robertianum, emitting their peculiar scent, with the radical reddish tinge, not yet budded. The cress in the water there was quite agreeable to our taste, and methinks would be good to eat fresh with bread. 

The neighboring hills began to sink, and entering the wood we soon passed Fassett's shanty, — he so busily at work inside that he did not see us, – and we took our dinner by the rocky brook-side in the woods just above. 

A dozen people passed us early in the afternoon, while we sat there, men and women on their way down from the summit, this suddenly very pleasant day after a louring one having attracted them. We met a man (apparently an Indian or Canadian half-breed) and a boy, with guns, who had been up after pigeons but only killed five crows. 

Thereabouts first I noticed the Ribes prostratum, abundantly in bloom, apparently in prime, with its pretty erect racemes of small flowers, sometimes purplish with large leaves. 

There, too, the Trillium erythrocarpum, now in prime, was conspicuous, – three white lanceolate waved-edged petals with a purple base. This the handsomest flower of the mountain, coexten sive with the wooded sides. 

Also the Viburnum lantanoides, apparently in prime, with its large and showy white outer florets, reminding me by its marginal flowering of the tree-cranberry, coextensive with last; and Uvularia grandiflora, not long begun to bloom. 

Red elder-berry not open, apparently, there; and Amelanchier Canadensis var. Botryapium not long in bloom. 

Having risen above the dwarfish woods (in which mountain-ash was very common), which reached higher up along this ravine than elsewhere, and nearly all the visitors having descended, we proceeded to find a place for and to prepare our camp at mid-afternoon. We wished it to be near water, out of the way of the wind, which was northwest, and of the path, and also near to spruce trees for a bed. (There is a good place if you would be near the top within a stone's throw of the summit, on the north side, under some spruce trees.) 

We chose a sunken yard in a rocky plateau on the southeast side of the mountain, perhaps half a mile from the summit, by the path, a rod and a half wide by many more in length, with a mossy and bushy floor about five or six feet beneath the general level, where a dozen black spruce trees grew, though the surrounding rock was generally bare. There was a pretty good spring within a dozen rods, and the western wall shelved over a foot or two. 

We slanted two scraggy spruce trees, long since bleached, from the western wall, and, cutting many spruce boughs with our knives, made a thick bed and walls on the two sides to keep out the wind. Then, putting several poles transversely across our two rafters, we covered [them] with a thick roof of spruce twigs, like shingles. The spruce, though harsh for a bed, was close at hand, we cutting away one tree to make room. 

We crawled under the low eaves of this roof, about eighteen inches high, and our extremities projected about a foot. Having left our packs here and made all ready for the night, we went up to the summit to see the sun set. 

Our path lay through a couple of small swamps and then up the rocks. 

Some forty or fifty rods below the very apex southeast, or quite on the top of the mountain, I saw a little bird flit out from beneath a rock close by the path on the left of it, where there were only very few scattered dwarf black spruce about, and, looking, I found a nest with three eggs. 

It was the Fringilla hyemalis, which soon disappeared around a projecting rock. It was near by a conspicuous spruce, six or eight feet high, on the west edge of a sort of hollow, where a vista opened south over the precipice, and the path ascended at once more steeply. The nest was sunk in the ground by the side of a tuft of grass, and was pretty deep, made of much fine dry grass or sedge (?) and lined with a little of a delicate bluish hair-like fibre (?) (q.v.) two or three inches long. 

The eggs were three, of a regular oval form, faint bluish white, sprinkled with fine pale-brown dots, in two of the three condensed into a ring about the larger end. They had apparently just begun to develop. The nest and tuft were covered by a projecting rock. 

Brewer says that only one nest is known to naturalists. 

We saw many of these birds flitting about the summit, perched on the rocks and the dwarf spruce, and disappearing behind the rocks. It is the prevailing bird now up there, i.e. on the summit. 

They are commonly said to go to the fur countries to breed, though Wilson says that some breed in the Alleghanies. The New York Reports make them breed on the mountains of Oswego County and the Catskills.” 

This was a quite interesting discovery. They probably are never seen in the surrounding low grounds at this season. 

The ancestors of this bird had evidently perceived on their flight northward that here was a small piece of arctic region, containing all the conditions they require, — coolness and suitable food, etc., etc., –and so for how long have builded here. For ages they have made their home here with the Arenaria Graenlandica and Potentilla tridentata. They discerned arctic isles sprinkled in our southern sky.

I did not see any of them below the rocky and generally bare portion of the mountain. It finds here the same conditions as in the north of Maine and in the fur countries, – Labrador mosses, etc. 

Now that the season is advanced, migrating birds have gone to the extreme north or gone to the mountain tops. 

By its color it harmonized with the gray and brownish-gray rocks. 

We felt that we were so much nearer to perennial spring and winter. 

I observed rabbit's dung commonly, quite to the top and all over the rocky portion, and where they had browsed the bushes. 

For the last fifteen or twenty rods the ground between the rocks is pretty thickly clothed or carpeted with mountain cranberry and Potentilla tridentata, only the former as yet slightly budded, but much lower than this the mountain cranberry is not common. The former grows also in mere seams on the nearly upright sides of rocks, and occasionally I found some of last year's cranberries on the latter, which were an agreeable acid. These were the prevailing plants of a high order on the very summit. 

There was also on the same ground considerable fine grass, and radical leaves of a sericocarpus-like aster (?), – I saw some withered heads, – springing up commonly, and a little (hardly yet conspicuously budded except in the warmest places) Arenaria Granlandica in dense tufts, succulent. 

There were a few very dwarfish black spruce there, and a very little dry moss, and, on the rocks, many of that small leather-colored lichen, and Umbilicaria pustulata, and the two common (?) kinds of cladonia, white and green, between them.

Scarcely, if at all, lower than the above-named plants, grew the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, also Pyrus arbutifolia, very minute and but just budded, and minute mountain-ashes, a few inches high only. From these one may judge what plants, among others, grow far north. 

We heard the hylodes peeping from a rain-water pool a little below the summit toward night. 

As it was quite hazy, we could not see the shadow of the mountain well, and so returned just before the sun set to our camp. We lost the path coming down, for nothing is easier than to lose your way here, where so little trail is left upon the rocks, and the different rocks and ravines are so much alike. Perhaps no other equal area is so bewildering in this respect as a rocky mountain summit, though it has so conspicuous a central point. 

Notwithstanding the newspaper and egg-shell left by visitors, these parts of nature are still peculiarly unhandselled and untracked. The natural terraces of rock are the steps of this temple, and it is the same whether it rises above the desert or a New England village. 

Even the inscribed rocks are as solemn as most ancient gravestones, and nature reclaims them with bog and lichens. They reminded me of the grave and pass of Ben Waddi (?). These sculptors seemed to me to court such alliance with the grave as they who put their names over tombstones along the highway. One, who was probably a blacksmith, had sculptured the emblems of his craft, an anvil and hammer, beneath his name. Apparently a part of the regular outfit of mountain-climbers is a hammer and cold-chisel, and perhaps they allow themselves a supply of garlic also. Certainly you could not hire a stone-cutter to do so much engraving for less than several thousand dollars. But no Old Mortality will ever be caught renewing these epitaphs. It reminds what kinds of steeps do climb the false pretenders to fame, whose chief exploit is the carriage of the tools with which to inscribe their names. For speaking epitaphs they are, and the mere name is a sufficient revelation of the character. They are all of one trade, -- stone cutters, defacers of mountain-tops. “Charles & Lizzie!” Charles carried the sledge-hammer, and Lizzie the cold chisel. Some have carried up a paint-pot, and painted their names on the rocks. 

We returned to our camp and got our tea in our sunken yard. While one went for water to the spring, the other kindled a fire. 

The whole rocky part of the mountain, except the extreme summit, is strewn with the relics of spruce trees, a dozen or fifteen feet long, and long since dead and bleached, so that there is plenty of dry fuel at hand. We sat out on the brink of the rocky plateau near our camp, taking our tea in the twilight, and found it quite dry and warm there, though you would not have thought of sitting out at evening in the surrounding valleys. 

It was evidently warmer and drier there than below. I have often perceived the warm air high on the sides of hills late into the night, while the valleys were filled with a cold damp night air, as with water, and here the air was warmer and drier the greater part of the night. We perceived no dew there this or the next night. 

This was our parlor and supper-room; in another direction was our wash-room. 

The chewink sang before night, and this, as I have before observed, is a very common bird on mountain-tops. It seems to love a cool atmosphere, and sometimes lingers quite late with us. And the wood thrush, indefinitely far or near, a little more distant and unseen, as great poets are. 

Early in the evening the nighthawks were heard to spark and boom over these bare gray rocks, and such was our serenade at first as we lay on our spruce bed. We were left alone with the nighthawks. 

These with drawn bare rocks must be a very suitable place for them to lay their eggs, and their dry and unmusical, yet supramundane and spirit-like, voices and sounds gave fit expression to this rocky mountain solitude. It struck the very key-note of the stern, gray, barren solitude. It was a thrumming of the mountain’s rocky chords; strains from the music of Chaos, such as were heard when the earth was rent and these rocks heaved up. Thus they went sparking and booming, while we were courting the first access of sleep, and I could imagine their dainty limping flight, circling over the kindred rock, with a spot of white quartz in their wings. 

No sound could be more in harmony with that scenery. 

Though common below, it seemed peculiarly proper here. But ere long the nighthawks were stilled, and we heard only the sound of our companion's breathing or of a bug in our spruce roof. I thought I heard once faintly the barking of a dog far down under the mountain, and my companion thought he heard a bullfrog. 

A little after 1 A. M., I woke and found that the moon had risen, and heard some little bird near by sing a short strain of welcome to it, somewhat song-sparrow-like. But every sound is a little strange there, as if you were in Labrador. Before dawn the nighthawks commenced their sounds again, and these sounds were as good as a clock to us, telling how the night got on.

H.. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 2, 1858


Thoreau visited Monadnock on four occasions: a solo overnight on the summit in 1844, a quick day-hike in  September 1852, and more extended stays in 1858 and 1860:  August 4 1860, August 5, 1860. August 6, 1860, August 7, 1860, August 8, 1860,  and  August 9, 1860

The ground between the rocks is pretty thickly clothed or carpeted with mountain cranberry and Potentilla tridentata. Compare September 7, 1852 (“In one little hollow between the rocks grow blueberries, choke-berries, bunch-berries, red cherries, wild currants (Ribes prostratum, with the berry the odor of skunk-cabbage, but a not quite disagreeable wild flavor), a few raspberries still, holly berries, mountain cranberries (Vaccinium Vitis-Idaea), all close together. The little soil on the summit between the rocks was covered with the Potentilla tridentata, now out of bloom, the prevailing plant at the extreme summit. Mountain-ash berries also.”)

Arctic isles sprinkled in our southern sky.  Monadnock rises 2,000 feet above its surrounding terrain and stands, at 3,165 feet, nearly 1,000 feet higher than any mountain peak within 30 miles .~ wikipedia. The internet credits the ecological term “sky island” as first introduced in 1943 by writer Natt N. Dodge’s in the Arizona Highways magazine.

Now that the season is advanced, migrating birds have gone to the extreme north or gone to the mountain tops. Dark-eyed juncos   have long been observed migrating through the eastern part of Massachusetts toward the mountains of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire and on into Canada, with a strong contingent stopping to nest in the higher elevations of western Massachusetts. Mass Audubon

June 2. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 2

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021