July 14
Wednesday.
This forenoon we rode on through Whitefield to Bethlehem, clouds for the most part concealing the higher mountains.
Found the Geum strictum in bloom in Whitefield; also common flax by a house.
Got another fine view of the mountains — the higher ones much more distant than before— from a hill just south of the public house in Bethlehem, but might have got a better view from a higher hill a little more east, which one said was the highest land between the Green and the White Mountains, of course on that line.
Saw the Stratford Peaks, thirty or forty miles north, and many mountains east of them. Climbed the long hill from Franconia to the Notch, passed the Profile House, and camped half a mile up the side of Lafayette.
***
Willey says of Jackson, “The great number of sheep scattered upon the mountains make it the principal place of resort for what bears and wolves are yet left among these hills.”
Wentworth said that he had trapped and killed a number of them. They killed many of his sheep and calves, and destroyed much of his corn when in the milk, close to his house. A sheep could run faster than a bear, but was not so long winded, especially going up a mountainside.
The bear, when pursued, would take directly to some distant and impenetrable thicket, as these dark fir thickets on the mountainside. He once found some young bears on a nest made-of small dry sticks collected under a ledge, and raising them five or six inches from the ground. He carried home the young and reared them.
The voice of a bear was like that of a woman in distress.
It was in Gilead, the first town (in Maine) northeast from Jackson, that Bean killed his bear, thrusting his arm down her throat.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 14, 1858
The voice of a bear was like that of a woman in distress. See July 8, 1858 (“In the course of the afternoon we heard, as we thought, a faint shout, and . . . soon Wentworth decided that it must be a bear, for they make a noise like a woman in distress. ”)
Bean killed his bear, thrusting his arm down her throat. Benjamin G. Willey's Incidents in White Mountain History (1856) ("A Mr. Bean was at work in his field, accompanied by a boy twelve years of age. The bear approached him, and having his gun with him, charged for partridges, he fired, but with little effect. The bear bore down upon him; he walked backwards, loading his gun at the same time, when his foot caught by a twig, which tripped him up, and the bear leaped upon him. He immediately fired again, but with no visible effect. The bear at once went to work,—seizing his left arm, biting through it, and lacerating it severely. While thus amusing himself, he was tearing with his fore paws the clothes, and scratching the flesh on the young man's breast. Having dropped his arm, he opened his huge mouth to make a pounce at his face. Then it was that the young man made the dash that saved his life. As the bear opened his jaws, Bean thrust his lacerated arm down the brute's throat, as far as desperation would enable him. There he had him! The bear could neither retreat nor advance, though the position of the besieged was anything but agreeable. Bean now called upon the lad to come and take from his pocket a jack-knife and open it. The boy marched up to the work boldly. Having got the knife, Bean with his untrammeled hand cut the bear's throat from ear to ear, killing him stone dead, while he lay on his body! It was judged the bear weighed nearly four hundred pounds. One of his paws weighed two pounds eleven ounces.”)
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Friday, July 13, 2018
The whole White Mountain range from Madison to Lafayette at sunset.
July 13.
Tuesday. This morning it rained, keeping us in camp till near noon, for we did not wish to lose the view of the mountains as we rode along.
We dined at Wood’s tavern in Randolph, just over Randolph Hill, and here had a pretty good view of Madison and Jefferson, which rose from just south the stream there, but a cloud rested on the summits most of the time.
As we rode along in the afternoon, I noticed that when finally it began to rain hard, the clouds settling down, we had our first distinct view of the mountain outline for a short time.
Wood said they had no spruce but white spruce there, though I called it black, and that they had no white pine nor oak.
It rained steadily and soakingly the rest of the afternoon, as we kept on through Randolph and Kilkenny and Jefferson Hill, so that we had no clear view of the mountains. We put up at a store just opposite the town hall on Jefferson Hill.
It here cleared up at sunset, after two days’ rain, and we had a fine view of the mountains, repaying us for our journey and wetting, Mt. Washington being some thirteen miles distant southeasterly.
South westward we looked down over a very extensive, uninterrupted, and level-looking forest, which our host said was very valuable on account of its white pine, their most valuable land, indeed.
Over this the fog clouds were rolling beneath us, and a splendid but cloudy sunset was preparing for us in the west.
By going still higher up the hill, in the wet grass north of the town house, we could see the whole White Mountain range from Madison to Lafayette.
The alpine, or rocky, portion of Mt. Washington and its neighbors was a dark chocolate-brown, the extreme summits being dark topped or edged, — almost invariably this dark saddle on the top, — and, as the sun got lower, a very distinct brilliant and beautiful green, as of a thick mantle, was reflected from the vegetation in the ravines, as from the fold of a mantle, and on the lower parts of the mountains. They were chiefly Washington and the high northern peaks that we attended to.
The waifs of fog-like cloud skirting the sides of Cherry Mountain and Mt. Deception in the south had the appearance of rocks, and gave to the mountainsides a precipitous look. I saw a bright streak looking like snow, a narrow bright ribbon where the source of the Ammonoosuc, swollen by the rain, leaped down the side of Mt. Washington from the Lake of the Clouds.
The shadows on Lafayette betrayed ridges running toward us. That brilliant green on the northern mountains was reflected but a moment or two, for the atmosphere at once became too misty. It several times disappeared and was then brought out again with wonderful brilliancy, as it were an invisible writing, or a fluid which required to be held to the sun to be brought out.
After the sun set to us, the bare summits were of a delicate rosaceous color, passing through violet into the deep dark-blue or purple of the night which already invested their lower parts, for this night-shadow was wonderfully blue, reminding me of the blue shadows on snow. There was an afterglow in which these tints and variations were repeated. It was the grandest mountain view I ever got.
In the meanwhile, white clouds were gathering again about the summits, first about the highest, appearing to form there, but sometimes to send off an emissary to initiate a cloud upon a neighboring peak. You could tell little about the comparative distance of a cloud and a peak till you saw that the former actually impinged on the latter.
First Washington, then Adams, then Jefferson put on their caps, and you saw the latter, as it were, send off one small nucleus to gather round the head of Madison. This was the best point from which to observe these effects that we saw in our journey, but it appeared to me that from a hill a few miles further westward, perhaps in Whitefield, the view might be even finer.
I made two sketches of the mountain outline here, as far south only as what the landlord called Mt. Pleasant, the route from the Notch house being visible no further.
This was said to be a fine farming town. I heard the ring of toads and saw a remarkable abundance of buttercup (the tall) yellowing the fields in this town and the next, somewhat springlike.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1858
Tuesday. This morning it rained, keeping us in camp till near noon, for we did not wish to lose the view of the mountains as we rode along.
We dined at Wood’s tavern in Randolph, just over Randolph Hill, and here had a pretty good view of Madison and Jefferson, which rose from just south the stream there, but a cloud rested on the summits most of the time.
As we rode along in the afternoon, I noticed that when finally it began to rain hard, the clouds settling down, we had our first distinct view of the mountain outline for a short time.
Wood said they had no spruce but white spruce there, though I called it black, and that they had no white pine nor oak.
It rained steadily and soakingly the rest of the afternoon, as we kept on through Randolph and Kilkenny and Jefferson Hill, so that we had no clear view of the mountains. We put up at a store just opposite the town hall on Jefferson Hill.
It here cleared up at sunset, after two days’ rain, and we had a fine view of the mountains, repaying us for our journey and wetting, Mt. Washington being some thirteen miles distant southeasterly.
South westward we looked down over a very extensive, uninterrupted, and level-looking forest, which our host said was very valuable on account of its white pine, their most valuable land, indeed.
Over this the fog clouds were rolling beneath us, and a splendid but cloudy sunset was preparing for us in the west.
By going still higher up the hill, in the wet grass north of the town house, we could see the whole White Mountain range from Madison to Lafayette.
The alpine, or rocky, portion of Mt. Washington and its neighbors was a dark chocolate-brown, the extreme summits being dark topped or edged, — almost invariably this dark saddle on the top, — and, as the sun got lower, a very distinct brilliant and beautiful green, as of a thick mantle, was reflected from the vegetation in the ravines, as from the fold of a mantle, and on the lower parts of the mountains. They were chiefly Washington and the high northern peaks that we attended to.
The waifs of fog-like cloud skirting the sides of Cherry Mountain and Mt. Deception in the south had the appearance of rocks, and gave to the mountainsides a precipitous look. I saw a bright streak looking like snow, a narrow bright ribbon where the source of the Ammonoosuc, swollen by the rain, leaped down the side of Mt. Washington from the Lake of the Clouds.
The shadows on Lafayette betrayed ridges running toward us. That brilliant green on the northern mountains was reflected but a moment or two, for the atmosphere at once became too misty. It several times disappeared and was then brought out again with wonderful brilliancy, as it were an invisible writing, or a fluid which required to be held to the sun to be brought out.
After the sun set to us, the bare summits were of a delicate rosaceous color, passing through violet into the deep dark-blue or purple of the night which already invested their lower parts, for this night-shadow was wonderfully blue, reminding me of the blue shadows on snow. There was an afterglow in which these tints and variations were repeated. It was the grandest mountain view I ever got.
In the meanwhile, white clouds were gathering again about the summits, first about the highest, appearing to form there, but sometimes to send off an emissary to initiate a cloud upon a neighboring peak. You could tell little about the comparative distance of a cloud and a peak till you saw that the former actually impinged on the latter.
First Washington, then Adams, then Jefferson put on their caps, and you saw the latter, as it were, send off one small nucleus to gather round the head of Madison. This was the best point from which to observe these effects that we saw in our journey, but it appeared to me that from a hill a few miles further westward, perhaps in Whitefield, the view might be even finer.
I made two sketches of the mountain outline here, as far south only as what the landlord called Mt. Pleasant, the route from the Notch house being visible no further.
This was said to be a fine farming town. I heard the ring of toads and saw a remarkable abundance of buttercup (the tall) yellowing the fields in this town and the next, somewhat springlike.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 13, 1858
July 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 13.
we did not wish to
lose the view of the mountains
as we rode along.
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
Descending Mt. Washington
July 12.
Monday. It having cleared up, we shouldered our packs and commenced our descent, by a path about two and a half or three miles to carriage-road, not descending a great deal.
The prevailing under-plants at first, as we descended, were Oxalis Acetosella (abundantly in bloom), Cornus Canadensis, Clintonia borealis, chiogenes, Vaccinium Camdense, gold-thread, Listera cordata, Smilacina bifolia. Solidago thyrsoidea, large and prevalent, on more open and grassy parts, from top of ravine to base of mountain, where it was in prime, three feet high and spikes eighteen inches long.
Trees, at first, fir and spruce; then canoe birches increased, and after two miles yellow birch began. Half-way down the mountain, on the road, saw a whiteweed and one Alsine ernlandica.
It [is] surprising how much of that white froth, the nidus of an insect, there was on the grass and weeds on and about the mountains. They were white with it. Carex trisperma (?), three-quarters down.
Hear the oven-bird near base.
Dined by Peabody River, three quarters of a mile south of Glen House.
Found Lonicera ciliata in fruit there and saw a little white pine, and Alnus incana was common, and that large, fragrant Aster macrophyllus (?) was budded.
I had noticed that the trees at the ravine camp -— fir and spruce — did not stand firmly. Two or three of us could have pulled over one thirty feet high and six or seven inches thick. They were easily rocked, lifting the horizontal roots each time, which reminded me of what is said about the Indians sometimes bending over a young tree, burying a chief under its roots, and letting it spring back for his monument and protection.
W. said they had found the fir the best material for bridge planking in his town, outlasting other woods!
In the afternoon we rode along, three of us, northward and northwestward on our way round the mountains, going through Gorham. We camped about a mile and a half west of Gorham, by the roadside, on the bank of Moose River.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 12, 1858
Monday. It having cleared up, we shouldered our packs and commenced our descent, by a path about two and a half or three miles to carriage-road, not descending a great deal.
The prevailing under-plants at first, as we descended, were Oxalis Acetosella (abundantly in bloom), Cornus Canadensis, Clintonia borealis, chiogenes, Vaccinium Camdense, gold-thread, Listera cordata, Smilacina bifolia. Solidago thyrsoidea, large and prevalent, on more open and grassy parts, from top of ravine to base of mountain, where it was in prime, three feet high and spikes eighteen inches long.
Trees, at first, fir and spruce; then canoe birches increased, and after two miles yellow birch began. Half-way down the mountain, on the road, saw a whiteweed and one Alsine ernlandica.
It [is] surprising how much of that white froth, the nidus of an insect, there was on the grass and weeds on and about the mountains. They were white with it. Carex trisperma (?), three-quarters down.
Hear the oven-bird near base.
Dined by Peabody River, three quarters of a mile south of Glen House.
Found Lonicera ciliata in fruit there and saw a little white pine, and Alnus incana was common, and that large, fragrant Aster macrophyllus (?) was budded.
I had noticed that the trees at the ravine camp -— fir and spruce — did not stand firmly. Two or three of us could have pulled over one thirty feet high and six or seven inches thick. They were easily rocked, lifting the horizontal roots each time, which reminded me of what is said about the Indians sometimes bending over a young tree, burying a chief under its roots, and letting it spring back for his monument and protection.
W. said they had found the fir the best material for bridge planking in his town, outlasting other woods!
In the afternoon we rode along, three of us, northward and northwestward on our way round the mountains, going through Gorham. We camped about a mile and a half west of Gorham, by the roadside, on the bank of Moose River.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 12, 1858
July 12. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 12
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
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
The lower limbs of the spruce slanted downward more generally than those of the fir.
July 11.
Sunday. Mizzling weather.
Were visited by three men from Glen House, who thought it was well named “ Tucker’s Ravine,” because it tuckered a man out to get to it!
It rained hard all Sunday night, wetting us but little, however. One of the slender spruce trees by our camp, which we cut down, though it looked young and thrifty, being twenty-eight feet high and only six and a half inches in diameter, had about eighty rings, and the firs were at least as old.
Wentworth said that he had five hundred acres, and would sell the whole with buildings for $2000.
He knew a dead log on the fire to be spruce, and not fir, because the stubs of the lower part slanted downward, and also by its “straight rift.” He called a rotten cane “dozy.” After some observation I concluded that it was true that the base of the lower limbs of the spruce slanted downward more generally than those of the fir.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 11, 1858
Sunday. Mizzling weather.
Were visited by three men from Glen House, who thought it was well named “ Tucker’s Ravine,” because it tuckered a man out to get to it!
It rained hard all Sunday night, wetting us but little, however. One of the slender spruce trees by our camp, which we cut down, though it looked young and thrifty, being twenty-eight feet high and only six and a half inches in diameter, had about eighty rings, and the firs were at least as old.
Wentworth said that he had five hundred acres, and would sell the whole with buildings for $2000.
He knew a dead log on the fire to be spruce, and not fir, because the stubs of the lower part slanted downward, and also by its “straight rift.” He called a rotten cane “dozy.” After some observation I concluded that it was true that the base of the lower limbs of the spruce slanted downward more generally than those of the fir.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 11, 1858
July 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 11
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
The note was so incessant that at length you only noticed when it ceased.
July 10
Saturday.
Wentworth says he once collected one hundred pounds of spruce gum and sold it at Biddeford for forty cents per pound. Says there are “sable lines” about here. They trap them, but rarely see them. His neighbor, who lives on the hill behind where we camped on the 6th, has four hours more sun than be. He can, accordingly, make hay better, but W. beats him in corn.
The days are about forty minutes longer on top of Mt. Washington than at seashore, according to guide-book. The sun set to us here at least an hour earlier than usual.
This ravine at the bottom of which we were, looking westward up it, had a rim somewhat like that of the crater of a volcano. The head of it bore from camp about N. 65° W., looking nearer than it was; the highest rock, with the outline of a face on it on the south rim, S. 32° W.; a very steep cliff on the opposite side, N. 20° W.; and over the last we judged was the summit of Mt. Washington.
As I understood Wentworth, this was in Pingree’s Grant; the Glen House in Pinkham’s Grant.
To-day and yesterday clouds were continually drifting over the summit, commonly extending about down to the edge of the ravine. When we looked up that way, the black patch made by our fire looked like a shadow on the mountainside.
When I tasted the water under the snow arch the day before, I was disappointed at its warmth, though it was in fact melted snow; but half a mile lower it tasted colder. Probably, the ice being cooled by the neighbor hood of the snow, it seemed thus warmer by contrast.
The only animals we saw about our camp were a few red squirrels. W. said there were striped ones about the mountains.
The Fringilla hyemalis was most common in the upper part of the ravine, and I saw a large bird of prey, perhaps an eagle, sailing over the head of the ravine. The wood thrush and veery sang regularly, especially morning and evening.
But, above all, the peculiar and memorable songster was that Monadnock-like one, keeping up an exceedingly brisk and lively strain. It was remarkable for its incessant twittering flow. Yet we never got sight of the bird, at least while singing, so that I could not identify it, and my lameness prevented my pursuing it. I heard it afterward, even in the Franconia Notch. It was surprising for its steady and uninterrupted flow, for when one stopped, another appeared to take up the strain. It reminded me of a fine corkscrew stream issuing with incessant lisping tinkle from a cork, flowing rapidly, and I said that he had pulled out the spile and left it running. That was the rhythm, but with a sharper tinkle of course. It had no more variety than that, but it was more remarkable for its continuance and monotonousness than any bird’s note I ever heard. It evidently belongs only to cool mountainsides, high up amid the fir and spruce. I saw once flitting through the fir-tops restlessly a small white it. Sometimes they appeared to be attracted by our smoke. The note was so incessant that at length you only noticed when it ceased.
The black flies were of various sizes here, much larger than I noticed in Maine. They compelled me most of the time to sit in the smoke, which I preferred to wearing a veil. They lie along your forehead in a line, where your hat touches it, or behind your ears, or about your throat (if not protected by a beard), or into the rims of the eyes, or between the knuckles, and there suck till they are crushed. But fortunately they do not last far into the evening, and a wind or a fog disperses them. I did not mind them much, but I noticed that men working on the highway made a fire to keep them off. I find many of them accidentally pressed in my botany and plant book. A botanist’s books, if he has ever visited the primitive northern woods, will be pretty sure to contain these specimens of the black fly. Anything but mosquitoes by night. Plenty of fly-blowing flies, but I saw no ants in the dead wood; some spiders.
In the afternoon, Hoar, Blake, and Brown ascended the slide on the south to the highest rock. They were more than an hour getting up, but we heard them shout distinctly from the top. Hoar found near the edge of the ravine there, between the snow there and edge, Rhododendron Lapponicum, some time out of bloom, growing in the midst of empetrum and moss; Arctostaphylos alpina, going to seed; Polygonum Mm'parum, in prime; and Salix herbacea, a pretty, trailing, roundish-leaved willow, going to seed, but apparently not so early as the S. Uva-ursi.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 10, 1858
The peculiar and memorable songster was that Monadnock-like one. . . so incessant that at length you only noticed when it ceased. See June 4, 1858 ("At 6 A. M. we began to descend [Monasnock. Near the upper edge of the wood, I heard, as I had done in ascending, a very peculiar lively and interesting strain from some bird, which note was new to me.") [Likely the winter wren. See Notes on New England Birds 363-364.]
Saturday.
July 10, 2013
The days are about forty minutes longer on top of Mt. Washington than at seashore, according to guide-book. The sun set to us here at least an hour earlier than usual.
This ravine at the bottom of which we were, looking westward up it, had a rim somewhat like that of the crater of a volcano. The head of it bore from camp about N. 65° W., looking nearer than it was; the highest rock, with the outline of a face on it on the south rim, S. 32° W.; a very steep cliff on the opposite side, N. 20° W.; and over the last we judged was the summit of Mt. Washington.
As I understood Wentworth, this was in Pingree’s Grant; the Glen House in Pinkham’s Grant.
To-day and yesterday clouds were continually drifting over the summit, commonly extending about down to the edge of the ravine. When we looked up that way, the black patch made by our fire looked like a shadow on the mountainside.
When I tasted the water under the snow arch the day before, I was disappointed at its warmth, though it was in fact melted snow; but half a mile lower it tasted colder. Probably, the ice being cooled by the neighbor hood of the snow, it seemed thus warmer by contrast.
The only animals we saw about our camp were a few red squirrels. W. said there were striped ones about the mountains.
The Fringilla hyemalis was most common in the upper part of the ravine, and I saw a large bird of prey, perhaps an eagle, sailing over the head of the ravine. The wood thrush and veery sang regularly, especially morning and evening.
But, above all, the peculiar and memorable songster was that Monadnock-like one, keeping up an exceedingly brisk and lively strain. It was remarkable for its incessant twittering flow. Yet we never got sight of the bird, at least while singing, so that I could not identify it, and my lameness prevented my pursuing it. I heard it afterward, even in the Franconia Notch. It was surprising for its steady and uninterrupted flow, for when one stopped, another appeared to take up the strain. It reminded me of a fine corkscrew stream issuing with incessant lisping tinkle from a cork, flowing rapidly, and I said that he had pulled out the spile and left it running. That was the rhythm, but with a sharper tinkle of course. It had no more variety than that, but it was more remarkable for its continuance and monotonousness than any bird’s note I ever heard. It evidently belongs only to cool mountainsides, high up amid the fir and spruce. I saw once flitting through the fir-tops restlessly a small white it. Sometimes they appeared to be attracted by our smoke. The note was so incessant that at length you only noticed when it ceased.
The black flies were of various sizes here, much larger than I noticed in Maine. They compelled me most of the time to sit in the smoke, which I preferred to wearing a veil. They lie along your forehead in a line, where your hat touches it, or behind your ears, or about your throat (if not protected by a beard), or into the rims of the eyes, or between the knuckles, and there suck till they are crushed. But fortunately they do not last far into the evening, and a wind or a fog disperses them. I did not mind them much, but I noticed that men working on the highway made a fire to keep them off. I find many of them accidentally pressed in my botany and plant book. A botanist’s books, if he has ever visited the primitive northern woods, will be pretty sure to contain these specimens of the black fly. Anything but mosquitoes by night. Plenty of fly-blowing flies, but I saw no ants in the dead wood; some spiders.
In the afternoon, Hoar, Blake, and Brown ascended the slide on the south to the highest rock. They were more than an hour getting up, but we heard them shout distinctly from the top. Hoar found near the edge of the ravine there, between the snow there and edge, Rhododendron Lapponicum, some time out of bloom, growing in the midst of empetrum and moss; Arctostaphylos alpina, going to seed; Polygonum Mm'parum, in prime; and Salix herbacea, a pretty, trailing, roundish-leaved willow, going to seed, but apparently not so early as the S. Uva-ursi.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 10, 1858
July 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 10
Back fly specimen
accidentaly pressed in
the botanist’s book.
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
Monday, July 9, 2018
Tuckerman's Ravine
July 9.
Friday. Walked to the Hermit Lake, some forty rods northeast.
Listera cordata abundant and in prime in the woods, with a little Platanthera obtusata, also apparently in prime. (The last also as far up as the head of the ravine sparingly.)
This was a cold, clear lake with scarcely a plant in it, of perhaps half an acre, and from a low ridge east of it was a fine view up the ravine. Hoar tried in vain for trout here.
The Vaccinium Canadense was the prevailing one here and by our camp.
Heard a bullfrog in the lake, and afterward saw a large toad part way up the ravine. Our camp was about on the limit of trees here, and may have been from twenty-five hundred to three thousand feet below the summit.
I was here surprised to discover, looking down through the fir-tops, a large, bright, downy fair-weather cloud covering the lower world far beneath us, and there it was the greater part of the time we were there, like a lake, while the snow and alpine summit were to be seen above us on the other side, at about the same angle. The pure white crescent of snow was our sky, and the dark mountainside above, our permanent cloud.
We had the Fringilla hyemalis with its usual note about our camp, and Wentworth said it was common and bred about his house. I afterward saw it in the valleys about the mountains. I had seen the white throated sparrow near his house. This also, he said, commonly bred there, on the ground.
The wood we were in was fir and spruce.
Along the brook grew the Alnus viridis, Salix Torreyana (?), canoe birch, red cherry, mountain-ash, etc., and prominent among lesser plants, Heracleum lanatum, Castilleja septentrionalis, the swamp gooseberry in flower and in green fruit, and a sort of Ribes floridum without resinous-dotted leaves! The Hedyotis coerulea was surprisingly large and fresh, in bloom, looking as much whiter than usual as late snows do. I thought they must be a variety. And on a sand-bar by the brook, Oxyria digyna, the very pretty mountain sorrel, apparently in prime.
Apparently Viola blanda, as well as wool-grass, in the meadow, and apparently Aster prenanthes and Juncus filiformis; also rhodora, fetid currant, amelanchier (variety oligocarpa), trientalis, mountain maple, tree-cranberry with green fruit, Aster acuminatus, and Aralia nudicaulis a salix humilis-like, and Polystichum aculeatum (??), and Lycopodium annotinum (variety).
I ascended the stream in the afternoon and got out of the ravine at its head, after dining on chiogenes tea, which plant I could gather without moving from my log seat. We liked it so well that Blake gathered a parcel to carry home. In most places it was scarcely practicable to get out of the ravine on either side on account of precipices. I judged it to be one thousand or fifteen hundred feet deep, but with care you could ascend by some slides. I found that we might have camped in the scrub firs above the edge of the ravine, though it would have been cold and windy and comparatively unpleasant there, for we should have been most of the time in a cloud.
The dense patches of dwarf fir and spruce scarcely rose above the rocks which they concealed, and you would often think the trees not more than a foot or two deep, — as, indeed, they might not be generally, — but, searching within, you would find hollow places six or eight feet deep between the rocks, where they filled up all level, and by clearing a space here with your hatchet you could find a shelter for your tent, and also fuel, and water was close by above the head of the ravine.
Nevertheless, at a glance, looking over, or even walking over, this dense shrubbery, you would have thought it nowhere more than a foot or two deep, and the trees at most only an inch or two in diameter; but by searching you would find deep hollow places in it, as I have said, where the firs were from six to ten inches in diameter. The strong wind and the snow are said to flatten these trees down thus. Such a shrubbery would begin with a thin and shallow but dense edge of spruce, not more than a foot thick, like moss upon a rock, on which you could walk, but in many places in the middle of it, though its surface was of a uniform slope, it would be found to be six or eight feet deep. So that these very thickets of which the traveller complains afford at the same time an indispensable shelter. I noticed that this shrubbery just above the ravine, as well as in it, was principally fir, while the yet more dwarfish and prostrate portion on the edge was spruce.
Returning, I sprained my ankle in jumping down the brook, so that I could not sleep that night, nor walk the next day.
We had commonly clouds above and below us, though it was clear where we were. These clouds commonly reached about down to the edge of the ravine.
The black flies, which pestered us till into evening, were of various sizes, the largest more than an eighth of an inch long. There were scarcely any mosquitoes here, it was so cool.
A small owl came in the evening and sat within twelve feet of us, turning its head this way and that and peering at us inquisitively. It was apparently a screech owl. [Or Acadica ?? Saw-whet?]
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 9, 1858
Friday. Walked to the Hermit Lake, some forty rods northeast.
Listera cordata abundant and in prime in the woods, with a little Platanthera obtusata, also apparently in prime. (The last also as far up as the head of the ravine sparingly.)
This was a cold, clear lake with scarcely a plant in it, of perhaps half an acre, and from a low ridge east of it was a fine view up the ravine. Hoar tried in vain for trout here.
The Vaccinium Canadense was the prevailing one here and by our camp.
Heard a bullfrog in the lake, and afterward saw a large toad part way up the ravine. Our camp was about on the limit of trees here, and may have been from twenty-five hundred to three thousand feet below the summit.
I was here surprised to discover, looking down through the fir-tops, a large, bright, downy fair-weather cloud covering the lower world far beneath us, and there it was the greater part of the time we were there, like a lake, while the snow and alpine summit were to be seen above us on the other side, at about the same angle. The pure white crescent of snow was our sky, and the dark mountainside above, our permanent cloud.
We had the Fringilla hyemalis with its usual note about our camp, and Wentworth said it was common and bred about his house. I afterward saw it in the valleys about the mountains. I had seen the white throated sparrow near his house. This also, he said, commonly bred there, on the ground.
The wood we were in was fir and spruce.
Along the brook grew the Alnus viridis, Salix Torreyana (?), canoe birch, red cherry, mountain-ash, etc., and prominent among lesser plants, Heracleum lanatum, Castilleja septentrionalis, the swamp gooseberry in flower and in green fruit, and a sort of Ribes floridum without resinous-dotted leaves! The Hedyotis coerulea was surprisingly large and fresh, in bloom, looking as much whiter than usual as late snows do. I thought they must be a variety. And on a sand-bar by the brook, Oxyria digyna, the very pretty mountain sorrel, apparently in prime.
Apparently Viola blanda, as well as wool-grass, in the meadow, and apparently Aster prenanthes and Juncus filiformis; also rhodora, fetid currant, amelanchier (variety oligocarpa), trientalis, mountain maple, tree-cranberry with green fruit, Aster acuminatus, and Aralia nudicaulis a salix humilis-like, and Polystichum aculeatum (??), and Lycopodium annotinum (variety).
I ascended the stream in the afternoon and got out of the ravine at its head, after dining on chiogenes tea, which plant I could gather without moving from my log seat. We liked it so well that Blake gathered a parcel to carry home. In most places it was scarcely practicable to get out of the ravine on either side on account of precipices. I judged it to be one thousand or fifteen hundred feet deep, but with care you could ascend by some slides. I found that we might have camped in the scrub firs above the edge of the ravine, though it would have been cold and windy and comparatively unpleasant there, for we should have been most of the time in a cloud.
The dense patches of dwarf fir and spruce scarcely rose above the rocks which they concealed, and you would often think the trees not more than a foot or two deep, — as, indeed, they might not be generally, — but, searching within, you would find hollow places six or eight feet deep between the rocks, where they filled up all level, and by clearing a space here with your hatchet you could find a shelter for your tent, and also fuel, and water was close by above the head of the ravine.
Nevertheless, at a glance, looking over, or even walking over, this dense shrubbery, you would have thought it nowhere more than a foot or two deep, and the trees at most only an inch or two in diameter; but by searching you would find deep hollow places in it, as I have said, where the firs were from six to ten inches in diameter. The strong wind and the snow are said to flatten these trees down thus. Such a shrubbery would begin with a thin and shallow but dense edge of spruce, not more than a foot thick, like moss upon a rock, on which you could walk, but in many places in the middle of it, though its surface was of a uniform slope, it would be found to be six or eight feet deep. So that these very thickets of which the traveller complains afford at the same time an indispensable shelter. I noticed that this shrubbery just above the ravine, as well as in it, was principally fir, while the yet more dwarfish and prostrate portion on the edge was spruce.
Returning, I sprained my ankle in jumping down the brook, so that I could not sleep that night, nor walk the next day.
We had commonly clouds above and below us, though it was clear where we were. These clouds commonly reached about down to the edge of the ravine.
The black flies, which pestered us till into evening, were of various sizes, the largest more than an eighth of an inch long. There were scarcely any mosquitoes here, it was so cool.
A small owl came in the evening and sat within twelve feet of us, turning its head this way and that and peering at us inquisitively. It was apparently a screech owl. [Or Acadica ?? Saw-whet?]
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 9, 1858
July 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 9
Tuckerman's ravine –
dense patches of fir and spruce
flattened by the wind.
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
Sunday, July 8, 2018
Botanizing Mt. Washington and setting it afire.
July 8.
Though a fair day, the sun did not rise clear.
I started before my companions, wishing to secure a clear view from the summit, while they accompanied the collier and his assistant, who were conducting up to the summit for the first time his goats.'He led the old one, and the rest followed.
I noticed these plants this morning and the night before at and above the limit of trees: Oxalis Acetosella, abundant and in bloom near the shanty and further down the mountain, all over the woods; Cornus Canadensis, also abundantly in bloom about the shanty and far above and below it. At shanty, or limit of trees. began to find Alsine Groenlandica abundant and in prime, the first mountain flover. [Durand in Kane puts it at 73° + in Greenland.] Noticed one returning, in carriage-road more than half-way down the mountain. It extended to within a mile of summit along path,1 and grew about our camp at Hermit Lake.
The second mountain plant I noticed was the ledum, growing in dense continuous patches or fields, filling broad spaces between the rocks, but dwarfish compared with ours in Concord. It was still in bloom. It prevailed about two miles below the summit. At the same elevation I noticed the Vaccinium uliginosum, a prevailing plant from the ledge to perhaps one mile or more below summit, almost entirely out of bloom, a procumbent bilbei'ry, growing well, not dwarfish, with peculiar glaucous roundish-obovate leaves.“
About the same time and locality, Salix Uva-ursi, the prevailing willow of the alpine region, completely out of bloom and going or gone to seed, a flat, trailing, glossy-leaved willow with the habit of the bearberry, spreading in a close mat over the rocks or rocky surface. I saw one spreading flat for three or four feet over a rock in the ravine (as low as I saw it).
Diapensia Lapponica (Menziesia coerulea), beginning about same time, or just over the ledge, reached yet higher, or to within last mile. Quite out of bloom; only one flower seen. It grows in close, firm, and dense rounded tufts, just like a moss but harder, between the rocks, the flowers considerably elevated above its surface.
Empetrum nigrum, growing somewhat like Corema, with berries green and some turning black.
Mountain cranberry was abundant and in bloom, a very pretty flower, with, say, the Vaccinium uliginosum and to within last mile.
Gold-thread in bloom, was abundant to within last mile.
As high as the above, on this side or that extended dwarf shrubby canoe birches and almost impassable thickets of dwarf fir and spruce. The latter when dead exhibited the appearance of deer’s horns, their hard, gnarled, slow-grown branches being twisted in every direction. Their roots were singularly knotted and swollen from time to time, from the size of the finger into oval masses like a ship’s block, or a rabbit made of a handkerchief.
Epigaea.
At this height, too, was a Lycopodium annotinum, a variety; and, probably, there, too, L. Selago, as at edge of ravine; a sedges, sorrel, moss, and lichens.
Was surprised not to notice the Potentilla tridentata in bloom till quite high, though common on low mountains southward. Here it was above the trailing- spruce, answering to top of Monadnock, and with it came more sedge, i. e. a more grassy surface without many larger plants. (George Bradford says he has found this potentilla on Cape Ann, at Eastern Point, east side Gloucester Harbor.)
About a mile below top, Geum radiatum var. Peckii in prime, and a little Silene acaulis (moss campion), still in bloom, a pretty little purplish flower growing like a moss in dense, hard tufts.
The rocks of the alpine portion are of about uniform size, not large nor precipitous. Generally there is no thing to prevent ascending in any direction, and there is no climbing necessary on the summit. For the last mile the rocks are generally smaller and more bare and the ascent easier, and there are some rather large level grassy spaces.
The rocks are not large and flat enough to hold water, as on Monadnock. I saw but little water on this summit, though in many places, commonly in small holes on the grassy flats, and I think the rocky portion under your feet is less interesting than at Monadnock.
I sweated in a thick coat as I ascended.
About half a mile below top I noticed dew on the mossy, tufted surface, with mountain cranberry in the sedge. On the very summit I noticed moss, sedge (the kind I have tied together) forming what is now to be called the Great Pasture there, they say; a little alsine and diapensia; a bright-green crustaceous lichen;"’ and that small dark-brown umbilicaria-like one (of Monadnock), of which I have a specimen. The rocks, being small and not precipitous, have no such lichen-clad angles as at Monadnock, yet the general aspect of the rocks about you is dark-brown.
All over the summit there is a great deal of that sedge grass, especially southeast and east amid the smallish rocks. There was a solidago (or aster) quite near summit (not out), perhaps S. Virgaurea.
The only bird I had seen on the way up, above the limit of trees, was the F ringilla hyemalis. Willey says the swallow flies over the summit and that a bear has been seen there.
I got up about half an hour before my party and enjoyed a good view, though it was hazy, but by the time the rest arrived a cloud invested us all, a cool driving mist, which wet you considerably, as you squatted behind a rock. As I looked downward over the rock surface, I saw tinges of blue sky and a light as of breaking away close to the rocky edge of the mountain far below me instead of above, showing that there was the edge of the cloud. It was surprising to look down thus under the cloud at an angle of thirty or forty degrees for the only evidences of a clear sky and breaking away. There was a ring of light encircling the summit, thus close to the rocks under the thick cloud, and the evidences of a blue sky in that direction were just as strong as ordinarily when you look upward.
On our way up we had seen all the time, before us on the right, a large patch of snow on the southeast side of Mt. Adams, the first large summit north of Washington. I observed that the enduring snow-drifts were such as had lodged under the southeast cliffs, having been blown over the summit by the northwest wind. They lie up under such cliffs and at the head of the ravines on the southeast slopes. with the pretty purple-flowered Phyllodoce taxifolia and Cassiope hymnodies.
The landlords of the Tiptop and Summit Houses, Spaulding and Hall, assured me that my (Willey’s) map was wrong, both in the names and height of Adams and Jeflerson, —~ that the order should be reversed, Adams being the sharp peak, the second large one north of Washington, —— but Boardman’s map also calls this Jefferson.
About 8.15 A.M., being still in a dense fog, we started direct for Tuckerman’s Ravine, I having taken the bearing of it before the fog, but Spaulding also went some ten rods with us and pointed toward the head of the ravine, which was about S. 15° W. Hoar tried to hire Page to go with us, carrying part of our baggage, — as he had already brought it up from the shanty, — and he professed to be acquainted with the mountain; but his brother, who lived at the summit, warned him not to go, lest he should not be able to find his way back again, and he declined. The landlords were rather anxious about us.
I looked at my compass every four or five rods and then walked toward some rock in our course, but frequently after taking three or four steps, though the fog was no more dense, I would lose the rock I steered for. The fog was very bewildering. You would think that the rock you steered for was some large boulder twenty rods off, or perchance it looked like the brow of a distant spur, but a dozen steps would take you to it, and it would suddenly have sunk into the ground.
I discovered this illusion. I said to my companions, “You see that boulder of a peculiar form, slanting over another. Well, that is in our course. How large do you think it is, and how far?” To my surprise, one answered three rods, but the other said nine. I guessed four, and we all thought it about eight feet high. We could not see beyond it, and it looked like the highest part of a ridge before us. At the end of twenty-one paces or three and a half rods, I stepped upon it, —— less than two feet high, —— and I could not have distinguished it from the hundred similar ones around it, if I had not kept my eye on it all the while.
It is unwise for one to ramble over these mountains at any time, unless he is prepared to move with as much certainty as if he were solving a geometrical problem. A cloud may at any moment settle around him, and unless he has a compass and knows which way to go, he will be lost at once.
One lost on the summit of these mountains should remember that if he will travel due east or west eight or nine miles, or commonly much less, he will strike a public road. Or whatever direction he might take, the average distance would not be more than eight miles and the extreme distance twenty. Follow some water-course running easterly or westerly. If the weather were severe on the summit, so as to prevent searching for the summit houses or the path, I should at once take a westward course from the southern part of the range or an eastward one from the northern part.
To travel there with security, a person must know his bearings at every step, be it fair weather or foul. An ordinary rock in a fog, being in the apparent horizon,is exaggerated to, perhaps, at least ten times its size and distance. You will think you have gone further than you have to get to it.
Descending straight by compass through the cloud, toward the head of Tuckerman’s Ravine, we found it an easy descent over, for the most part, bare rocks, not very large, with at length moist springy places, green with sedge, etc., between little sloping shelves of green meadow, where the hellebore grew, within half a mile of top, and the Oldenlandia caerulea was abundantly out and very large and fresh, surpassing ours in the spring.
And here, I think, Juncus trifidos (?), and Lycopodium Selago, and Lonicera caerulea, or moun tain fly-honeysuckle, in bloom, only two specimens; it is found in the western part of Massachusetts.2 Saw a few little ferns of a narrow triangular form, somewhat like the Woodsz'a Ilvensis, but less hairy and taller; small clintonias in bloom, and Viola palustris, in prime, from three quarters of a mile below summit down to snow; and a fine juncus or scirpus, cwspitosus-like, i. e. a single-headed or spiked rush; and trientalis, still in bloom, rather depauperate; and, I think, a few small narrow-leaved blueberry bushes; at least one minute mountain-ash. Also the Geum radiatum var. Peckii was conspicuous in prime hence down to the snow in the ravine. These chiefly in those peculiar moist and mossy sloping shelves on the mountain-side, on way to the ravine, or within a mile of the summit.
Some twenty or thirty rods above the edge of the ravine, where it was more level and wet and grassy under low cliffs, grew the Phyllpdoce taxifolia, not in tufts, under the jutting rocks and in moss, somewhat past prime.1 The Uvularia grandiflora apparently in prime, and, part way down into ravine, Loiseleuria (Azalea) procumbens, on rocks, still in bloom,2 and Cassiope hypnoides, about done. These four on a moist southeast slope. Also Rubus triflorus, reaching to camp, in pi'ime. Just on the edge of the ravine I began to see the H eracleum lanatum in prime, and the common arch angelica, not out; and as I descended into the ravine on the steep side moist with melted snows, Veronica alpina, apparently in prime, and N abalus Boottii (P) budded, down to snow, and Epilobium alpinum in prime, and Platanthera dilatata in prime, and the common rue and the first Castilleja septentrionalis (Bartsia pallida), ap parently not long, which was more common about our camp. I recollect seeing all the last eight (except the rue and veronica and nabalus, which I do not remem ber) about our camp and yet more flourishing there and Solidago Virgaurea var. alpina, not quite out, edge of ravine. Should have included Arm'ca mollis among those on side of ravine reaching to camp, and, accord— ing to Hoar, raspberry and linnaea.
We crossed a narrow portion of the snow, but found' it unexpectedly hard and dangerous to traverse. I tore up my nails in my efforts to save myself from sliding an irregular crescent on the steep slope at the head of the ravine, some sixty rods wide horizontally, or from north to south, and twenty-five rods wide from upper to lower side. It may have been half a dozen feet thick in some places, but it diminished sensibly in the rain . while we were there. Is said to be all gone commonly by end of August. The surface was hard, difficult to work your heels into, and a perfectly regular steep slope, steeper than an ordinary roof from top to bottom. A considerable stream, a source of the Saco, was flowing out from beneath it, where it had worn a low arch a rod or more wide. Here were the phenomena of winter and earliest spring, contrasted with summer.
On the edge of and beneath the overarching snow, many plants were just pushing up as in our spring. The great plaited elliptical buds of the hellebore had just pushed up there, even under the edge of the snow, and also bluets. Also, close to edge of snow, the bare upright twigs of a willow, with small silvery buds not yet expanded, of a satiny lustre, one to two feet high (apparently Salim repens),‘ but not, as I noticed, procumbent, while a rod off on each side, where it had been melted some time, it was going to seed and fully leaved out.
The surface of the snow was dirty, being covered with cinder-like rubbish of vegetation, which had blown on to it. Yet from the camp it looked quite white and pure. For thirty or forty rods, at least, down the stream, you could see the point where the snow had recently melted It was a dirty—brown flattened stubble, not yet at all greened, covered with a blackish slimy dirt, the dust of the snow-crust. Looking closely, Isaw that it was composed in great part of the stems and flowers apparently of last year’s goldenrods (if not asters), — perhaps large thyrsoidea, for they grew there on the slides,—now quite flattened, with other plants. ‘A pretty large dense-catkined willow grew in the upper part of the ravine, q. 1:. Also, near edge of snow, vanilla grass, a vaccinium,1 budded, with broad obovate leaves (q. 1).), Spiraea salici/‘olia (and on slides), and nabalus (Boottii .9) leaves.
From the edge of the ravine, I should have said that, having reached the lower edge of the cloud, we came into the sun again, much to our satisfaction, and discerned a little lake called Hermit Lake, about a mile off, at the bottom of the ravine, just within the limit of the trees. For this we steered, in order to camp by it for the sake of the protection of the wood. But following down the edge of the stream, the source of Ellis River, which was quite a brook within a stone’s throw of its head, we soon found it very bad walking in the scrubby fir and spruce, and therefore, when we had gone about two thirds the way to the lake, decided to camp in the midst of the dwarf firs, clearing away a space with our hatchets.
This is apparently V. ccespitosum, for the anthers are two-awned, though I count but ten stamens in the flower I open, and I did not notice that the plant was tufted. Apparently the same, with thinner leaves, by Peabody River at base, but noticed no flowers there. Yet Gray refers it only to the alpine region! the trees were seven or eight feet high,
Wentworth kindled a fire on the lee side, without — against my advice — removing the moss, which was especially dry on the rocks and directly ignited and set fire to the fir leaves, spreading off with great violence and crackling over the mountain, and making us jump for our baggage; but fortunately it did not burn a foot toward us, for we could not have run in that thicket. It spread particularly fast in the procumbent creeping spruce, scarcely a foot deep, and made a few acres of deer’s horns, thus leaving our mark on the mountainside.
We thought at first it would run for miles, and W. said that it Would do no harm, the more there was burned the bettter; but such was the direction of the wind that it soon reached the brow of a ridge east of us and then burned very slowly down its east side. Yet Willey says (page 23), speaking of the dead trees or “ buck’s horns,” “Fire could not have caused the death of these trees; for fire will not spread here, in consequence of the humidity of the whole region at this elevation;” and he attributes their death to the cold of 1816.
Yet it did spread above the limit of trees in the ravine. Finally we kept on, leaving the fire raging, down to the first little lake, walking in the stream, jumping from rock to rock with it. It may have fallen a thousand feet within a mile below the snow, and we camped on a slight rising ground between that first little lake and the stream, in a dense fir and spruce wood thirty feet high, though it was but the limit of trees there.
On our way we found the Arm'ca mollis (recently begun to bloom), a very fragrant yellow-rayed flower, by the side of the brook (also half-way up the ravine). The Alnus viridis was a prevailing shrub all along this stream, seven or eight feet high near our camp near the snow. It was dwarfish and still in flower, but in fruit only below; had a glossy, roundish, wrinkled, green, sticky leaf. Also a little Ranunculus abortivus by the brook, in bloom.
Close by our camp, the Heracleum lanatum, or cow parsnip, masterwort, grew quite rankly, its great leaves eighteen inches wide and umbels eight or nine inches wide; the petioles had inflated sheaths. I afterward saw it, I think in Campton, as much as seven feet high. It was quite common and conspicuous in the neighborhood of the mountains, especially in Franconia Notch.
Though a fair day, the sun did not rise clear.
 |
| July 8, 2018 |
I noticed these plants this morning and the night before at and above the limit of trees: Oxalis Acetosella, abundant and in bloom near the shanty and further down the mountain, all over the woods; Cornus Canadensis, also abundantly in bloom about the shanty and far above and below it. At shanty, or limit of trees. began to find Alsine Groenlandica abundant and in prime, the first mountain flover. [Durand in Kane puts it at 73° + in Greenland.] Noticed one returning, in carriage-road more than half-way down the mountain. It extended to within a mile of summit along path,1 and grew about our camp at Hermit Lake.
The second mountain plant I noticed was the ledum, growing in dense continuous patches or fields, filling broad spaces between the rocks, but dwarfish compared with ours in Concord. It was still in bloom. It prevailed about two miles below the summit. At the same elevation I noticed the Vaccinium uliginosum, a prevailing plant from the ledge to perhaps one mile or more below summit, almost entirely out of bloom, a procumbent bilbei'ry, growing well, not dwarfish, with peculiar glaucous roundish-obovate leaves.“
About the same time and locality, Salix Uva-ursi, the prevailing willow of the alpine region, completely out of bloom and going or gone to seed, a flat, trailing, glossy-leaved willow with the habit of the bearberry, spreading in a close mat over the rocks or rocky surface. I saw one spreading flat for three or four feet over a rock in the ravine (as low as I saw it).
Diapensia Lapponica (Menziesia coerulea), beginning about same time, or just over the ledge, reached yet higher, or to within last mile. Quite out of bloom; only one flower seen. It grows in close, firm, and dense rounded tufts, just like a moss but harder, between the rocks, the flowers considerably elevated above its surface.
Empetrum nigrum, growing somewhat like Corema, with berries green and some turning black.
Mountain cranberry was abundant and in bloom, a very pretty flower, with, say, the Vaccinium uliginosum and to within last mile.
Gold-thread in bloom, was abundant to within last mile.
As high as the above, on this side or that extended dwarf shrubby canoe birches and almost impassable thickets of dwarf fir and spruce. The latter when dead exhibited the appearance of deer’s horns, their hard, gnarled, slow-grown branches being twisted in every direction. Their roots were singularly knotted and swollen from time to time, from the size of the finger into oval masses like a ship’s block, or a rabbit made of a handkerchief.
Epigaea.
At this height, too, was a Lycopodium annotinum, a variety; and, probably, there, too, L. Selago, as at edge of ravine; a sedges, sorrel, moss, and lichens.
Was surprised not to notice the Potentilla tridentata in bloom till quite high, though common on low mountains southward. Here it was above the trailing- spruce, answering to top of Monadnock, and with it came more sedge, i. e. a more grassy surface without many larger plants. (George Bradford says he has found this potentilla on Cape Ann, at Eastern Point, east side Gloucester Harbor.)
About a mile below top, Geum radiatum var. Peckii in prime, and a little Silene acaulis (moss campion), still in bloom, a pretty little purplish flower growing like a moss in dense, hard tufts.
The rocks of the alpine portion are of about uniform size, not large nor precipitous. Generally there is no thing to prevent ascending in any direction, and there is no climbing necessary on the summit. For the last mile the rocks are generally smaller and more bare and the ascent easier, and there are some rather large level grassy spaces.
The rocks are not large and flat enough to hold water, as on Monadnock. I saw but little water on this summit, though in many places, commonly in small holes on the grassy flats, and I think the rocky portion under your feet is less interesting than at Monadnock.
I sweated in a thick coat as I ascended.
About half a mile below top I noticed dew on the mossy, tufted surface, with mountain cranberry in the sedge. On the very summit I noticed moss, sedge (the kind I have tied together) forming what is now to be called the Great Pasture there, they say; a little alsine and diapensia; a bright-green crustaceous lichen;"’ and that small dark-brown umbilicaria-like one (of Monadnock), of which I have a specimen. The rocks, being small and not precipitous, have no such lichen-clad angles as at Monadnock, yet the general aspect of the rocks about you is dark-brown.
All over the summit there is a great deal of that sedge grass, especially southeast and east amid the smallish rocks. There was a solidago (or aster) quite near summit (not out), perhaps S. Virgaurea.
The only bird I had seen on the way up, above the limit of trees, was the F ringilla hyemalis. Willey says the swallow flies over the summit and that a bear has been seen there.
I got up about half an hour before my party and enjoyed a good view, though it was hazy, but by the time the rest arrived a cloud invested us all, a cool driving mist, which wet you considerably, as you squatted behind a rock. As I looked downward over the rock surface, I saw tinges of blue sky and a light as of breaking away close to the rocky edge of the mountain far below me instead of above, showing that there was the edge of the cloud. It was surprising to look down thus under the cloud at an angle of thirty or forty degrees for the only evidences of a clear sky and breaking away. There was a ring of light encircling the summit, thus close to the rocks under the thick cloud, and the evidences of a blue sky in that direction were just as strong as ordinarily when you look upward.
On our way up we had seen all the time, before us on the right, a large patch of snow on the southeast side of Mt. Adams, the first large summit north of Washington. I observed that the enduring snow-drifts were such as had lodged under the southeast cliffs, having been blown over the summit by the northwest wind. They lie up under such cliffs and at the head of the ravines on the southeast slopes. with the pretty purple-flowered Phyllodoce taxifolia and Cassiope hymnodies.
The landlords of the Tiptop and Summit Houses, Spaulding and Hall, assured me that my (Willey’s) map was wrong, both in the names and height of Adams and Jeflerson, —~ that the order should be reversed, Adams being the sharp peak, the second large one north of Washington, —— but Boardman’s map also calls this Jefferson.
About 8.15 A.M., being still in a dense fog, we started direct for Tuckerman’s Ravine, I having taken the bearing of it before the fog, but Spaulding also went some ten rods with us and pointed toward the head of the ravine, which was about S. 15° W. Hoar tried to hire Page to go with us, carrying part of our baggage, — as he had already brought it up from the shanty, — and he professed to be acquainted with the mountain; but his brother, who lived at the summit, warned him not to go, lest he should not be able to find his way back again, and he declined. The landlords were rather anxious about us.
I looked at my compass every four or five rods and then walked toward some rock in our course, but frequently after taking three or four steps, though the fog was no more dense, I would lose the rock I steered for. The fog was very bewildering. You would think that the rock you steered for was some large boulder twenty rods off, or perchance it looked like the brow of a distant spur, but a dozen steps would take you to it, and it would suddenly have sunk into the ground.
I discovered this illusion. I said to my companions, “You see that boulder of a peculiar form, slanting over another. Well, that is in our course. How large do you think it is, and how far?” To my surprise, one answered three rods, but the other said nine. I guessed four, and we all thought it about eight feet high. We could not see beyond it, and it looked like the highest part of a ridge before us. At the end of twenty-one paces or three and a half rods, I stepped upon it, —— less than two feet high, —— and I could not have distinguished it from the hundred similar ones around it, if I had not kept my eye on it all the while.
It is unwise for one to ramble over these mountains at any time, unless he is prepared to move with as much certainty as if he were solving a geometrical problem. A cloud may at any moment settle around him, and unless he has a compass and knows which way to go, he will be lost at once.
One lost on the summit of these mountains should remember that if he will travel due east or west eight or nine miles, or commonly much less, he will strike a public road. Or whatever direction he might take, the average distance would not be more than eight miles and the extreme distance twenty. Follow some water-course running easterly or westerly. If the weather were severe on the summit, so as to prevent searching for the summit houses or the path, I should at once take a westward course from the southern part of the range or an eastward one from the northern part.
To travel there with security, a person must know his bearings at every step, be it fair weather or foul. An ordinary rock in a fog, being in the apparent horizon,is exaggerated to, perhaps, at least ten times its size and distance. You will think you have gone further than you have to get to it.
Descending straight by compass through the cloud, toward the head of Tuckerman’s Ravine, we found it an easy descent over, for the most part, bare rocks, not very large, with at length moist springy places, green with sedge, etc., between little sloping shelves of green meadow, where the hellebore grew, within half a mile of top, and the Oldenlandia caerulea was abundantly out and very large and fresh, surpassing ours in the spring.
And here, I think, Juncus trifidos (?), and Lycopodium Selago, and Lonicera caerulea, or moun tain fly-honeysuckle, in bloom, only two specimens; it is found in the western part of Massachusetts.2 Saw a few little ferns of a narrow triangular form, somewhat like the Woodsz'a Ilvensis, but less hairy and taller; small clintonias in bloom, and Viola palustris, in prime, from three quarters of a mile below summit down to snow; and a fine juncus or scirpus, cwspitosus-like, i. e. a single-headed or spiked rush; and trientalis, still in bloom, rather depauperate; and, I think, a few small narrow-leaved blueberry bushes; at least one minute mountain-ash. Also the Geum radiatum var. Peckii was conspicuous in prime hence down to the snow in the ravine. These chiefly in those peculiar moist and mossy sloping shelves on the mountain-side, on way to the ravine, or within a mile of the summit.
Some twenty or thirty rods above the edge of the ravine, where it was more level and wet and grassy under low cliffs, grew the Phyllpdoce taxifolia, not in tufts, under the jutting rocks and in moss, somewhat past prime.1 The Uvularia grandiflora apparently in prime, and, part way down into ravine, Loiseleuria (Azalea) procumbens, on rocks, still in bloom,2 and Cassiope hypnoides, about done. These four on a moist southeast slope. Also Rubus triflorus, reaching to camp, in pi'ime. Just on the edge of the ravine I began to see the H eracleum lanatum in prime, and the common arch angelica, not out; and as I descended into the ravine on the steep side moist with melted snows, Veronica alpina, apparently in prime, and N abalus Boottii (P) budded, down to snow, and Epilobium alpinum in prime, and Platanthera dilatata in prime, and the common rue and the first Castilleja septentrionalis (Bartsia pallida), ap parently not long, which was more common about our camp. I recollect seeing all the last eight (except the rue and veronica and nabalus, which I do not remem ber) about our camp and yet more flourishing there and Solidago Virgaurea var. alpina, not quite out, edge of ravine. Should have included Arm'ca mollis among those on side of ravine reaching to camp, and, accord— ing to Hoar, raspberry and linnaea.
We crossed a narrow portion of the snow, but found' it unexpectedly hard and dangerous to traverse. I tore up my nails in my efforts to save myself from sliding an irregular crescent on the steep slope at the head of the ravine, some sixty rods wide horizontally, or from north to south, and twenty-five rods wide from upper to lower side. It may have been half a dozen feet thick in some places, but it diminished sensibly in the rain . while we were there. Is said to be all gone commonly by end of August. The surface was hard, difficult to work your heels into, and a perfectly regular steep slope, steeper than an ordinary roof from top to bottom. A considerable stream, a source of the Saco, was flowing out from beneath it, where it had worn a low arch a rod or more wide. Here were the phenomena of winter and earliest spring, contrasted with summer.
On the edge of and beneath the overarching snow, many plants were just pushing up as in our spring. The great plaited elliptical buds of the hellebore had just pushed up there, even under the edge of the snow, and also bluets. Also, close to edge of snow, the bare upright twigs of a willow, with small silvery buds not yet expanded, of a satiny lustre, one to two feet high (apparently Salim repens),‘ but not, as I noticed, procumbent, while a rod off on each side, where it had been melted some time, it was going to seed and fully leaved out.
The surface of the snow was dirty, being covered with cinder-like rubbish of vegetation, which had blown on to it. Yet from the camp it looked quite white and pure. For thirty or forty rods, at least, down the stream, you could see the point where the snow had recently melted It was a dirty—brown flattened stubble, not yet at all greened, covered with a blackish slimy dirt, the dust of the snow-crust. Looking closely, Isaw that it was composed in great part of the stems and flowers apparently of last year’s goldenrods (if not asters), — perhaps large thyrsoidea, for they grew there on the slides,—now quite flattened, with other plants. ‘A pretty large dense-catkined willow grew in the upper part of the ravine, q. 1:. Also, near edge of snow, vanilla grass, a vaccinium,1 budded, with broad obovate leaves (q. 1).), Spiraea salici/‘olia (and on slides), and nabalus (Boottii .9) leaves.
From the edge of the ravine, I should have said that, having reached the lower edge of the cloud, we came into the sun again, much to our satisfaction, and discerned a little lake called Hermit Lake, about a mile off, at the bottom of the ravine, just within the limit of the trees. For this we steered, in order to camp by it for the sake of the protection of the wood. But following down the edge of the stream, the source of Ellis River, which was quite a brook within a stone’s throw of its head, we soon found it very bad walking in the scrubby fir and spruce, and therefore, when we had gone about two thirds the way to the lake, decided to camp in the midst of the dwarf firs, clearing away a space with our hatchets.
This is apparently V. ccespitosum, for the anthers are two-awned, though I count but ten stamens in the flower I open, and I did not notice that the plant was tufted. Apparently the same, with thinner leaves, by Peabody River at base, but noticed no flowers there. Yet Gray refers it only to the alpine region! the trees were seven or eight feet high,
Wentworth kindled a fire on the lee side, without — against my advice — removing the moss, which was especially dry on the rocks and directly ignited and set fire to the fir leaves, spreading off with great violence and crackling over the mountain, and making us jump for our baggage; but fortunately it did not burn a foot toward us, for we could not have run in that thicket. It spread particularly fast in the procumbent creeping spruce, scarcely a foot deep, and made a few acres of deer’s horns, thus leaving our mark on the mountainside.
We thought at first it would run for miles, and W. said that it Would do no harm, the more there was burned the bettter; but such was the direction of the wind that it soon reached the brow of a ridge east of us and then burned very slowly down its east side. Yet Willey says (page 23), speaking of the dead trees or “ buck’s horns,” “Fire could not have caused the death of these trees; for fire will not spread here, in consequence of the humidity of the whole region at this elevation;” and he attributes their death to the cold of 1816.
Yet it did spread above the limit of trees in the ravine. Finally we kept on, leaving the fire raging, down to the first little lake, walking in the stream, jumping from rock to rock with it. It may have fallen a thousand feet within a mile below the snow, and we camped on a slight rising ground between that first little lake and the stream, in a dense fir and spruce wood thirty feet high, though it was but the limit of trees there.
On our way we found the Arm'ca mollis (recently begun to bloom), a very fragrant yellow-rayed flower, by the side of the brook (also half-way up the ravine). The Alnus viridis was a prevailing shrub all along this stream, seven or eight feet high near our camp near the snow. It was dwarfish and still in flower, but in fruit only below; had a glossy, roundish, wrinkled, green, sticky leaf. Also a little Ranunculus abortivus by the brook, in bloom.
Close by our camp, the Heracleum lanatum, or cow parsnip, masterwort, grew quite rankly, its great leaves eighteen inches wide and umbels eight or nine inches wide; the petioles had inflated sheaths. I afterward saw it, I think in Campton, as much as seven feet high. It was quite common and conspicuous in the neighborhood of the mountains, especially in Franconia Notch.
Our camp was opposite a great slide on the south, apparently a quarter of a mile wide, with the stream between us and it, and I resolved if a great storm should occur that we would flee to higher ground northeast. The little pond by our side was perfectly clear and cool, without weeds, and the meadow by it was dry enough to sit down in.
When I looked up casually toward the crescent of snow I would mistake it for the sky, a white glowing sky or cloud, it was so high, while the dark earth on [the] mountainside above it passed for a dark cloud.
In the course of the afternoon we heard, as we thought, a faint shout, and it occurred to me that Blake, for whom I had left a note at the Glen House, might possibly be looking for me; but soon Wentworth decided that it must be a bear, for they make a noise like a woman in distress. He has caught many of them. light coat on the meadow. After an hour or two had elapsed, we heard the voice again, nearer, and saw two men, and I went up the stream to meet Blake and Brown, wet, ragged, and bloody with black flies.
I had told Blake to look out for a smoke and a white tent, and we had made a smoke sure enough. They were on the edge of the ravine when they shouted and heard us answer, or about a mile distant, -— heard over all the roar of the stream! ! You could hear one shout from Hermit Lake to the top of the ravine above snow, back and forth, - which I should think was a mile. They also saw our coat waved and ourselves.
We slept five in the tent that night, and it rained, putting out the fire we had set. It was quite warm at night in our tent. The wood thrush, which Wentworth called the nightingale, sang at evening and in the morning, and the same bird which I heard on Monadnock, I think, and then thought might be the Blackburnian warbler; also the veery.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 8, 1858
When I looked up casually toward the crescent of snow I would mistake it for the sky, a white glowing sky or cloud, it was so high, while the dark earth on [the] mountainside above it passed for a dark cloud.
In the course of the afternoon we heard, as we thought, a faint shout, and it occurred to me that Blake, for whom I had left a note at the Glen House, might possibly be looking for me; but soon Wentworth decided that it must be a bear, for they make a noise like a woman in distress. He has caught many of them. light coat on the meadow. After an hour or two had elapsed, we heard the voice again, nearer, and saw two men, and I went up the stream to meet Blake and Brown, wet, ragged, and bloody with black flies.
I had told Blake to look out for a smoke and a white tent, and we had made a smoke sure enough. They were on the edge of the ravine when they shouted and heard us answer, or about a mile distant, -— heard over all the roar of the stream! ! You could hear one shout from Hermit Lake to the top of the ravine above snow, back and forth, - which I should think was a mile. They also saw our coat waved and ourselves.
We slept five in the tent that night, and it rained, putting out the fire we had set. It was quite warm at night in our tent. The wood thrush, which Wentworth called the nightingale, sang at evening and in the morning, and the same bird which I heard on Monadnock, I think, and then thought might be the Blackburnian warbler; also the veery.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 8, 1858
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