Blue Mountain

“ Yet for all their seeming indifference the people of the Blue Ridge, who locked their offspring generation after generation in mountain fastnesses that have barred the world, have kept alive and fresh in memory the unwritten song, the speech, the tradition of their Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic ancestors.
Down through the centuries the blood and traditions of the pioneers have carried, creating a stalwart, a fearless people. Hidden away in the high crannies of the Blue Ridge they have come to be known as Mountaineers, Southern Highlanders, Appalachian Mountaineers, and Southern Mountaineers. ”

“ Nick, what is it?" Edwin asked in a mystified tone.
Then in very simple words Edwin heard for the first time the real facts regarding the great mountain that had until then been as an awful nightmare to the unenlightened boy. Pointing away toward the line of blue and white domes and peaks that grew more and more faint as they faded away in the distance, Mr. Hahn explained that they were only high parts of the earth. "Blue Mountain," he said, "is only one part of the range, and those dark places that you see on its sides are just trees and bushes such as grow right here in our yard. ”

“ I determined to make my excursion to the Blue Mountain, and, sending Steve down to the post-office, a three-days' journey, I took the boat, with Carlo and my rifle, and pushed off. The outlet of the Blue Mountain Lakes is like all the Adirondack streams, dark and shut in by forest, which scarcely permits landing anywhere. Now and then a log fallen into the water compels the voyager to get out and lift his boat over; then a shallow rapid must be dragged over ”

“ The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water,—so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be. ”

“ When the vapours obscuring the middle slopes of the mountain dissolve and disappear, you see the shadowed jaws of the great chasm—the whole side of the mountain burst asunder from the cornice of the snow-roof to the base, the base itself depressed and hollow throughout its width of about 10 miles. No cloud has yet climbed to the snows of the summit, shining in the brilliant blue. ”

“ Off yonder the TVA has harnessed the waterpower of the Holston and Tennessee, made a great valley to burst into a miracle of man’s genius. Modern industrial plants steam along the banks.
Good roads, the automobile, schoolhouses, the airplane have wiped out all barriers between mountain and plain. The Blue Ridge casts a long, long shadow across blossoming valleys. ”

“ Stone cottages are being overgrown with grass and moss, or are falling into decay, deserted by men.
Once a week the sun shines, and then the mountain peaks are revealed in all the inexpressible tints of blue; and there is blueness which is azure, mother-of-pearl, foggy or indigo, clouded like vapours, a hint or mere reminder of something beautifully blue. All these, and countless other shades of blueness I saw on the blue summits of Cuilin, but there, added to everything else, can be seen the blue sky and the blue bay, and this simply cannot be narrated ”

“ They are hospitable beyond measure, I have come to know in my long years of roaming through the mountains, first as court stenographer in isolated courts, then as ballad collector. I have never entered a mountain home throughout the Blue Ridge, no matter how humble the fare, where man, woman, or child offered apology for anything, their surroundings or the food and hospitality given to the stranger under their roof. “You’re welcome to what we’ve got,” is the invariable greeting—though the bed be a crude shuck tick shared with the children of the family, the fare cornbread and sorghum. ”

“ When mountain breezes sally,
The water strikes the rock midway,
And leaps into the valley.
Now in the west the colours change,
The blue with crimson blending;
Behind the far Dividing Range,
The sun is fast descending. ”

“ The dark mountains rising purple to the snow, peak beyond peak of the Southern Alps soaring white against that wondrous blue—so close they seem, so attainable—it is hard to realize they are 10,000 feet above us. And between two mountain walls, filling a mighty gorge, winds down the Franz Josef glacier; an icy chaos of pinnacles and seracs, green-blue and glittering white against the purple-black crags of the gorge. But strangest of all is where the glacier and the forest meet, and the splendid scarlet of the ratas seems almost to touch the ice and snow. ”

“ The trip to the highest point—Blue Mountain Peak—is one of two days, the night being spent in a hut on the summit. Provisions must be laid in and guides procured, who will also serve as porters. The road mounts ridge after ridge, winds down steep descents, crosses the streams that rush down every gorge, skirts along the slopes and goes over the tops of the intervening hills, and now and then leaves one valley and follows the course of another. An easy ride of about four hours brings the traveler to Farm Hill Coffee Plantation, where the keys of the hut on the summit may be obtained. ”

“ The great hills no longer sat solidly on the earth beneath. Instead a soft blue dust of turquoise gems flowed up from the valleys and lifted them from their foundations till they floated gently zenithward through an increasing sea of this same semi-opaque blue. Always the distant mountains are ethereal. Tramp them as much as you may, get the scars of their granite ledges on yourself, as you surely will if you climb them, get to know their every crag and ravine if you can ”

“ A second breakfast with the man of the mountain, and a glorious bath in a huge tank somewhat restored us, and as we regained our horses the miseries of our expedition were over. My friend fervently and loudly declared that no spirit of hospitality, no courtesy to a stranger, no human eloquence should again tempt him to ascend the Blue Mountains ”

“ He felt that he had within him the power to achieve something worth while in the world. Certainly, he would not fail for lack of striving. But no triumph elsewhere could ever wean him from his love for the Blue Ridge—for his home country. Yes, it was as he had said there in the store: He would come back. He would come back to the cabin in the “cove” under the shadows of Stone Mountain—back to the old mother, back to Plutina. A warmth of exquisite tenderness vibrated through him, as his hope leaped to that homecoming, to the time when once again the girl should rest clinging on his bosom. ”

“ This slope, near the summit, is overgrown with firs, aspens and pines, which give way as the descent is made, to piñons, cedar and scrubby oak trees and a more or less abundant growth of chaparral. Small streams and springs are found in the larger canyons on this slope, while far below, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, lies Blue River.
The country at the extreme head of Blue River forms a great mountain amphitheater, with one side so near the upper course of Black River that one can traverse the distance between the basins of the two streams in a short ride. ”

“ Mountains make a background against which blue sky can be seen; between them and the eye are so many miles of visible atmosphere, domesticated, brought down to the regions of earth, not resting overhead, a vagueness and a void. Air, blue in full daylight, rose and violet at sunset, gray like powdered starlight by night, is collected and isolated by a mountain, so that the eye can comprehend it in nearer acquaintance. There is nothing so refined as the outline of a distant mountain: even a rose-leaf is stiff-edged and harsh in comparison. ”

“ Today Skyline Highway—U. S. 25 and 58—leads from the saddle of the historic Gap to the top of Pinnacle Mountain, commanding a view of six states, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.
And the scene has changed.
Spring has come to the Blue Ridge. The hum of industry echoes along once lonely creeks, through quiet hollows. We see no more the oxcart lumbering, creaking laboriously along, higher and higher up the rugged mountain side. The latest model motor glides swiftly over the smooth surface, winding its way upward and upward. ”

“ A fellow-passenger in the train told our friends that it was a favorite saying in the country that nobody ever dies in the Blue Mountains; he simply dries up and disappears. Another passenger said that once, when a town was founded in the Blue Mountain district, the people wanted to start a graveyard, and took along an elderly man who was in the last stages of consumption. ”

“ The dense forests that are adjacent teem with game, and its hotels and private camps are among the best in the region, "Camp Pine Knot" being especially famous as the most elaborate and attractive of its kind in America. Blue Mountain rises to the eastward nearly thirty-eight hundred feet, and at its southwestern base is the Blue Mountain Lake, having 325 on its southern edge the small Eagle Lake, where lived in a solitary house called the Eagle's Nest the noted "Ned Buntline," the author. To the southwest of Raquette are the chain of eight Fulton Lakes. ”

“ At last I had gotten to where it was not so steep, yet it was still quite a distance from the top of the Blue Ridge mountains. After I had traveled some distance further I finally found it to be quite difficult to make much headway on a strange mountain, and that after night, and if, dear reader, you have ever been on any mountain you will find it more or less uneven and hard to climb, even in the daytime. ”

“ The profound blue of the stainless sky, the manifold green of the dense forests that environ the lake and march up the steep flank of the mountain to the vertical height of half a mile above its perfect mirror, that reflects every fine needle and also photographs on its steely plate another half mile of rock and snow towering above the forest line, and then are the rich sunset hues thrown upon peak and glacier—all412 these seen twice in reality and by reflection. The rare coloring lavished on heights and depths is worth a long journey to see. ”

“ Having crossed a low piece of land on the opposite side, we reached the slope of the Blue Mountains. The ascent is not steep, the road having been cut with much care on the side of a sandstone cliff. On the summit an almost level plain extends, which, rising imperceptibly to the westward, at last attains a height of more than 3000 feet. From so grand a title as Blue Mountains, and from their absolute altitude, I expected to have seen a bold chain of mountains crossing the country; but instead of this, a sloping plain presents merely an inconsiderable front to the low land near the coast. ”

“ The Blue Ridge is the most easterly range of the Appalachian mountain system. I presume you are unaware that it actually has its beginning at West Point on the Hudson River, whence so many fine young officers went out to fight for their country in the great World War. ”

“ Uncle Dick exclaimed, stoutly. “We jest got to find hit. Come on!”
The marshal urged the other to rest in preparation 183 for the hard climb—down the ridge, and then up the sharp slopes and ledges of the mountainside. But the old man would have none of it. So, straightway, the two moved off, leaving the others, less hardy, to repose, and in due time they came to the bar below Sandy Creek Falls.
High among the embattled cliffs of Stone Mountain’s eastern end, Sandy Creek races in tumultuous course. The limpid stream cascades in vertical sheen of silver from ledge to ledge. ”

“ On the shore of the main-land, west of Mount Desert, is Blue Hill, another lone mountain. Katahdin is still another astray, of grander proportions, it is true, but belonging to this family of lost mountains. Although they appear a continuous chain when massed by distance, the Mount [Pg 30] Desert range is, in reality, broken into little family groups, as exhibited on the map. ”

“ In southwestern Virginia the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies coalesce, but soon spread apart again, the Blue Ridge retaining its name, as well as its general character, although much loftier and more massive than in the north. The southeast front of the Blue Ridge is a steep escarpment, rising abruptly from the Piedmont Plateau of Carolina. Not one river cuts through the Ridge, notwithstanding that the mountains to the westward are higher and much more massive. It is the watershed of this whole mountain region. ”

“ Silent villages, earthquake-shaken, without commerce, without industry, without knowledge, without hope, gleam in white ruin from hill-side to hill-side; far-winding wrecks of immemorial walls surround the dust of cities long forsaken: the mountain streams moan through the cold arches of their foundations, green with weed, and rage over the heaps of their fallen towers. Far above, in 236 thunder-blue serration, stand the eternal edges of the angry Apennine, dark with rolling impendence of volcanic cloud. ”

“ The Blue Mountains are a range of heights which commence at the Saptin, about twenty miles above its junction with the Columbia, near the 46° of north latitude, and run south-westerly about two hundred miles, and terminate in a barren, rolling plain. They are separated from the Rocky Mountains by the valley of the Saptin, and are unconnected with any other range. Some of their loftiest peaks are more than ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. ”