A night on Mt. Washington.

July 7. 

Wednesday. Having engaged the services of Wentworth to carry up some of our baggage and to keep our camp, we rode onward to the Glen House, eight miles further, sending back our horse and wagon to his house. 

This road passes through what is called the Pinkham Notch, in Pinkham’s Grant, the land, a large tract, having been given away to Pinkham for making the road a good while since. Wentworth has lived here thirty years and is a native. 

Have occasional views of Mt. Washington or a spur of it, etc. 

Get by roadside, in bloom some time, Geum macrophyllum; also, in a damp place, Platanthera dilatata, a narrow White spike. 

Turned off a little to the right to see Glen Ellis Falls. 

Began the ascent by the mountain road at 11.30 A.M.

For about the first three quarters of a mile of steady (winding) ascent the wood was spruce, yellow birch (some, generally the largest, with a very rough, coarse, scaly bark, but other trees equally large had a beautifully smooth bark, and Wentworth called these “silver birch,” it appeared not to depend on age merely), hemlock, beech, canoe birch (according to Willey, “most abundant in the districts formerly burnt”), rock maple, fir, mountain maple (called by Wentworth bastard maple), northern wild cherry, striped maple, etc. 

At about a mile and three quarters spruce prevails, and rock maple, beech, and hemlock, etc., disappear. At three miles, or near the limit of trees, fir (increasing) and spruce chiefly prevail. And near by was the foot of the ledge and limit of trees, only their dead trunks standing, probably fir and spruce, about the shanty where we spent the night with the colliers.

I went on nearly a mile and a half further, and found many new alpine plants and returned to this shanty. A merry collier and his assistant, who had been making coal for the summit and were preparing to leave the next morning, made us welcome to this shanty and entertained us with their talk. We here boiled some of our beef-tongues, a very strong wind pouring in gusts down the funnel and scattering the fire about through the cracked stove. 

This man, named Page, had imported goats on to the mountain, and milked them to supply us with milk for our coffee. The road here ran north and south to get round the ledge. The wind, blowing down the funnel, set fire to a pile of dirty bed quilts when I was out, and came near burning up the building. 

There were many barrels of spoiled beef in the cellar, and he said that a person coming down the mountain some time ago looked into the cellar and saw five wildcats (loups-cerviers) there. Page had heard two fighting like-cats near by a few nights before. 

The wind blowed very strong and in gusts this night, but he said it was nothing to what it was sometimes, when the building rocked four inches.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 7, 1858