Though a fair day, the sun did not rise clear.
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| 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 H eracleum 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 neighbor hood 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 be— tween 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
