Mount Monadnock

“ The climber again pulled off his soft hat, this time in greeting to his old friend; for years a pair have made their home here on the mountain, out on the Dublin Ridge,—apparently a preëmpted spot for never are others of their kind seen here. The young are evidently sternly driven forth year by year to fare in less picturesque places. Monadnock would not seem quite itself without the floating, majestic flight of those two wheeling sentinels. ”

“ He had it in mind to find a trail that he had been told wandered up from this spot towards the Sweet-Water Spring and then on around a little-used path, skirting Monte Rosa until one reached the northwest side of that friendly little peak which rises abruptly from the southwest shoulder of Monadnock. Having feasted his eyes on the fairy nook, the climber betook himself therefore up a steep, obscure little path that creeps up the ledge back of it and there pursued something that looked vaguely like a trail. ”

“ One has the sensation of being on the roof of a high building with a deep drop between him and the surrounding country. The view is superb. The whole mass of Mt. Monadnock, from its base to the highest elevation, rises from the valley ten miles distant. ”

“ Monadnock, a thin gray mist still enveloping it. The base of the mountain is hidden by an intervening hill. Leaving this pasture, and walking a few hundred rods further on, I enter a field where the hay has just been cut, and which is now as smooth as a croquet lawn, but not so level; for it is the crest of one of the highest hills. Here a new scene awaits me. To the north and west the hill has the shape almost of a perfect dome. Stretched on the top, I cannot see the declivities of the sides, but only the tops of the trees at some distance. ”

“ There are many approaches to the heart of this Monadnock. Those who climb the rough main trail, merely to look from the peak, do not grasp even the fringe of its mysteries. Even to the dwellers on the spreading plains below, though it may be to them a vision of artistic delight, or as it was to Kipling, a mute Teacher, even to these, manifold as may be the many lessons the granite pile may offer them, but a tithe of its joy is known. ”

“ Winnipiseogee was visible throughout its whole length, the multitude of islands peeping above it giving the idea of an inundation rather than an inland sea. On the farthest shores mere specks of white denoted houses; and traced in faint relief on the southern sky, so unsubstantial, indeed, as to render it doubtful if it were sky or mountain, was the Grand Monadnock, the fixed sentinel of all this august assemblage of mountains.
Glowing in sunset splendor, streaked with all the hues of the rainbow, the lake was indeed magnificent. ”

“ Monadnock! Stately mountain, solitary sentinel of haunting beauty and intimate and irresistible allurement! Mountain loved of poets and artists; mountain which knew and loved in return the footsteps of Emerson and Thoreau and Thayer.
A strangely individual mass it is in its calm isolation, dominating subtly the entire countryside. It does not rise to great heights as mountains go, but so bold is its long couchant outline, so stern is its splendid solitude, so imposing is its brooding strength that a grandeur lies upon it that many a mightier mountain lacks. ”

“ This afternoon the words returned to him with renewed meaning, as he looked deeply into the heart of Monadnock. That counsel was what the mountain whispered. When it rained—let it rain. How could anything so transient as even the most raging tempest affect its inner, inscrutable calm? ”

“ Now that the storm had passed, Monadnock rose again against the blue, "busy with its sky affairs," absolutely undisturbed, absolutely peaceful. What mattered the might of wind and driving storm? They had passed. So had they always passed. All was as if they had not been. To the watcher
ON THE SUMMIT DEEP CRYSTAL POOLS REFLECT THE SKY
on the stone seat words floated into his consciousness.
"The storms can endure but for a night. Peace comes with the morning. Oh, soul! tarry thou the Lord's leisure! Be strong and He shall comfort thine heart!" ”

“ He stopped at last at a little lair that he dearly loved, well around the peak of Monte Rosa as one rounded the northwestern shoulder; from this point the little-used trail across the ravine to the Marlborough ridge takes its beginning, dipping down into a sharp declivity and rising to the edge of the first little ravine beyond. Further on and above it, a big white stone on the lip of the next ravine, was a clear landmark. The climber dropped into his lair—one of the thousand little spots at the base of a sloping rock with just the right slant for the back ”

“ The days drifted along, one a good deal like another, except, as the summer deepened, the weather became warmer, the foliage changed, a drowsy haze gathered along the valleys and on the mountain-side. He sat more often now in a large rocking-chair, and generally seemed to be looking through half-dosed lids toward the Monadnock heights, that were always changing in aspect-in color and in form—as cloud shapes drifted by or gathered in those lofty hollows. ”

“ To the west the rolling surface of Monmouthshire, luxuriant in verdure and opulent in colouring, is cloven by the valley of the Monnow, which well-nourished and rapid stream meets the Wye at Monmouth.
Rising at the head of the outermost eastern gorge of the Black Mountains, the Monnow runs a course from its source to its mouth of unremitting loveliness. Met at the base of the mountains by the Honddu, coming fresh from the sacred pastures of mountain-girdled Llanthony, the united streams are still further reinforced at Pontrilas{58} by the waters of the Golden Valley. ”

“ Should he continue around the peak itself and take the trail on the east side down? No, not today. He had a fancy to keep on the west side and take his way back by the Monte Rosa trail from the summit; this trail roughly paralleled the one he had taken coming up in the morning, but it lay much higher, crossing the heads of the various little ravines, up and down whose sides the lower track led. Having decided this, the climber came up slowly from the north side where he had been sitting, and approached the pile of stone that made the dividing cairn where his way branched from the main trail. ”

“ So still had he lain that the annoyed junco fluttering in and out of the dwarfed spruce near by had at last concluded he was but a long stone and had ceased scolding. The thinker whistled to the downy-breasted little creature that cocked a startled head at him and flew chattering away. He stretched himself and stood up, eyeing the almost unused trail that lay across from Monte Rosa to the long, gradual descent of the Marlborough shoulder, that here formed his horizon line to the north. This trail wanders along, rising and falling into one little ravine after another ”

“ On the right towards the mountain was a thick tangle of spruces on broken cliffs for he was just at the line where the deciduous trees change quite abruptly to evergreens. No trail to be seen up through them. The last blaze was just here at the foot of a rough little precipice, which was irregularly backed by a higher one at a ledge covered with gray-green moss. Scrubby little spruces grew thickly; the whole side of Monte Rosa to the right lifted itself level after level. Where could the little path have betaken itself? ”

“ They have gone through the forest towards the Powhatan. My brother cannot see their trail, for the eyes of the palefaces are clouded, but Monakatocka sees it."
Landless turned upon him. "Will Monakatocka go with me against the Ricahecrians?"
"Monakatocka has dreamt of the village on the pleasant river where he was born. The arm of the white men cannot reach him here, in these woods, far from their wigwams and warriors and guns; it cannot pluck him back to be beaten. He toils no more in their fields. He is a real man again, a warrior of the long house, a chief of the Conestogas. ”

“ Moggonck, Maggonck, Moggonick, Moggoneck, Mohonk, etc., are forms of the name given as that of the "high hill" which forms the southwest boundmark of the Paltz Patent, so known, now generally called locally, Paltz Point, and widely known as Mohunk. The hill is a point of rock formation on the Shawongunk range. It rises about 1,000 feet above the plain below and is crowned by an apex which rises as a battlement about 400 feet above the brow of the hill, now called Sky Top. ”

“ Towards the south the ground continued to rise in long ridges running east and west, probably a continuation of the mountain chain running to the south-east, or a connection between it and the plateau. We stubbornly continued our march; we would not give in until we had the plain itself before us. Our hope was that the ridge projecting from Mount Don Pedro Christophersen would be the last; we now had it before us. The going changed at once up here; the loose snow disappeared, and a few wind-waves (sastrugi) began to show themselves. ”

“ Who can believe that the mountain peak which he beholds fifty miles off in the horizon, rising far and faintly blue above an intermediate range, while he stands on his trivial native hills or in the dusty highway, can be the same as that which he looked up at once near at hand from a gorge in the midst of primitive woods! For a part of two days we traveled across lots, loitering by the way, through primitive woods and swamps, over the highest peak of the Peterboro' Hills to Monadnock, by ways from which all landlords and stage-drivers endeavored to dissuade us. ”

“ Onward swept beckoning cairns, leading across to where the Upper Trail to the Great Pasture dipped again into the woods, the path which drops with romantic abruptness down ledge after ledge, till it reaches at last the Great Pasture lying far below, tapestried with its blueberry bushes and grassy tufts. But the climber kept to the upland, twisting his way up and up, scrambling across the rock-faces as best he might. He could not now see the Giant for he was hidden for the moment behind the nearer height of Monte Rosa, but it was beyond and ever beckoning. ”

“ The morning was hot and muggy, even at that early hour, and crossing over the Hooker moraine and glacier was far from exhilarating work. After some discussion between Clark and Murphy as to the best route, they decided to follow up the Mona Glacier to the broken ice, and from there gain the rocks on its left-hand side, making a traverse till we could reach the main west arête leading direct to the summit. The Mona is a small but most precipitous glacier, and we had a tedious time toiling up it until we gained the rocks. ”

“ Mount Fridtjof Nansen, for example, had quite a blue-black look. Only quite at the summit was it crowned by a mighty hood of ice that raised its shining top to some 15,000 feet. Farther to the south rose Mount Don Pedro Christophersen; it was more covered with snow, but the long, gabled summit was to a great extent bare. Still farther south Mounts Alice Wedel Jarlsberg, Alice Gade, and Ruth Gade, came in sight; all snow-clad from peak to base. I do not think I have ever seen a more beautiful or wilder landscape. ”

“ The Mountain-Lover took up the refrain, all sympathy. Yes, it was hard at times to find one's way on the paths, especially when they crossed; no, perhaps they were not very plain to a stranger. The trail he should have taken led up around that little precipice that he had faced when he first came out into the open. He could follow the little cairns back across the rocks in this dip, and he would easily find the Sidefoot again and thence down to the house. ”

“ The rapid descent of the modern river below the old rock floor of the ancient one gives rise to the steep slopes and gorge-like character of the Monongahela valley every where between Weston and Pittsburg, while the same is true of the lower courses of all the larger tributary streams, the descent in these being very rapid in the last few miles of their courses, while in their upper reaches the slope is gentle and the topography much older looking. ”

“ Now to an old mountaineer the Oberland cliffs are full of memories; and, more than this, he has learnt the language spoken by every crag and every wave of glacier. It is strange if they do not affect him rather more powerfully than the casual visitor who has never been initiated by practical experience into their difficulties. To him, the huge buttress which runs down from the Mönch is something more than an irregular pyramid, purple with white patches at the bottom and pure white at the top. He fills up the bare outline supplied by the senses with a thousand lively images. ”

“ There is a chain of mountains behind Montanvert, all covered with snow, which terminate in four distinct rocks, of a great height, having the appearance of narrow pyramids or spires. They are called the Needles; and each has a distinct name.—Mont Blanc, surrounded by Montanvert, Mount Breven, the Needles, and other snowy mountains, appears like a giant among pygmies. ”

“ We arrived at Montanvert, however, safe.
On all sides precipitous mountains, the abodes of unrelenting frost, surround this vale: their sides are banked up with ice and snow, broken, heaped high, and exhibiting terrific chasms. The summits are sharp and naked pinnacles, whose overhanging steepness will not even permit snow to rest upon them. Lines of dazzling ice occupy here and there their perpendicular rifts, and shine through the driving vapours with inexpressible brilliance: they 166pierce the clouds like things not belonging to this earth. ”