A GLIMPSE OF THE ADIRONDACKS.
Lake George, Sept. —, 1876.
My Dear Friend: Not content with being told that we enjoyed our trip immensely, you demand a description—of, at least, the chief part of it. Now, an adequate description of any kind of scenery is by no means an easy thing. I have read since my return those Adventures of a Phaeton which your high praises made me promise to try. And, certainly, the author’s plan is admirably executed; his pages are fragrant with rural freshness; but can you aver that your mind carries away a single picture from his numerous descriptions? I have, as you know, the advantage over you of having visited some of the places through which he conducts the party, particularly Oxford and its vicinity; but I assure you, had I not seen old Iffley, for instance, with its church and mill, the strokes of his pen would have given me no idea of them.
Poets understand description better than other writers. Lord Byron is the greatest master of the art in our language, and, I venture to say, in any. What is their secret? To go into the least possible detail—sketching but a few bold outlines, and leaving you to contemplate, as they did. I shall make no apology, then, for following in their wake.
Well, the time we spent in the woods proper—or mountains proper, if you prefer it—was barely five days. It took us a whole day to voyage down Lake George and part of Lake Champlain, and then stage (or vehicle) it to a place with the euphonious name of Keene Flats. Lake George looked as lovely as it always does under a clear morning sky; and when the Minnehaha had finished her course, we found—something new to us—a railway station, and a train waiting to convey us to Lake Champlain. I cannot deny that the unromantic train is an improvement on the coach-ride of other days; for the old road was so absurdly bad, one had to hold on to the coach like grim death to avoid being jolted off.
The Champlain boats are all that can be desired. Besides other accommodations, they serve you with a dinner which is well worth the dollar you pay for it. The lake itself, though, makes a very poor show after the beautiful George; and on this occasion what charms it had were veiled by a thick smoke—from Canadian forests (we were told). We had not more than time for a post-prandial cigar before we reached Westport, our aquatic terminus. Landing, we found it no difficult matter to discover the stage for Keene Flats. Two men, if not three, vociferously greeted us with “Keene Flats!” “Stage for Keene Flats!” The stage we had expected to meet was not there. It ran only Tuesdays and Fridays, they said—or Mondays and Fridays, I forget which—and this was Wednesday. So we took the only one to be had, and started on a journey of some twenty-four miles, but which lasted over five hours.
The journey was broken by having to change vehicles at Elizabethtown—a strikingly pretty place, and evidently popular. The drive thus far had been through a continuous cloud of dust, and the thickest of its kind I was ever in. The remaining fourteen miles were really delightful. While evening fell softly from a cloudless sky, the scenery grew bolder and wilder. The heights on either side took a deeper blue, the woods a darker green. And presently the chill air made us wrap ourselves against it. Very long seemed the drive, and weary; but many a violet peak beguiled us with its beauty, and the large star drew our thoughts from earth, till at last, as we descended into Keene Valley, the moon rose to light us to our rest.
It was after nine o’clock when we
alighted at Washbond’s. Mine host had gone to bed, but was not slow to answer our summons; and then his wife and daughter came down to get us supper. We did justice to the repast, which was simple but well served, and in the meantime made arrangements with Trumble, the guide, whom we were fortunate in finding at home. Our beds were in a new house Washbond had just built. Everything was clean and comfortable, and I need not say we slept.
Breakfasting about eight next morning, we made preparations for our tramp through the woods. The guide was very useful to us in knowing what provisions to get. His younger brother, too—himself training for a guide—came along with us, for a consideration, to help carry our load.
Taking one more meal at Washbond’s, we started in the heat of noon. A couple of miles brought us to the woods proper. Here the character of the road changed, of course, and the “pull” began. It was surprising how cool the air of the woods was when we stopped to breathe and sat down with our packs; whereas, wherever the sun got at us through the trees, he “let us know he was there.” But had the fatigue of those first miles through the woods been twice or ten times as great, it would have been more than repaid when, suddenly, a turn in the road brought us in view of the Lower Au Sable Lake.
One of our trio, whom we called Colonel (for we thought it wise to travel incog.—the second being Judge, and myself Doctor), had run on ahead of the guides—a practice he kept up throughout the trip. We heard him shout as he came upon the lake, and he told us afterwards
that he had taken off his hat and thanked God for having lived to see that view. There lay the water in the light of afternoon, long, narrow, and winding out of sight. To either shore sloped a mountain, wooded, clear-cut, precipitous.
It was quite romantic to be told we had to navigate this lake. But first there were the Rainbow Falls to see. Our end of the lake (not included in the above view) was choked up with fallen timber. Crossing on some trunks to the other shore, we had but a few minutes’ walk before we came into a rocky hollow of wildest beauty, where, from a cliff some hundred and fifty feet high, leapt the torrent—scarcely “with delirious bound,” nor, of course, with the bulk it would have had in winter, yet with terrible majesty—into a channel below us. It did not wear the rainbow coronal, the time of day being too late. But the glen was well worth a visit, and deliciously cool from the spray.
The boat we were to voyage in was the property of the guide—a light craft, and rather too crank to be comfortable, particularly with a load of five on board, to say nothing of the dog and the baggage; so that, in fact, our passage along the lake and between the giant slopes was not as pleasant as it might have been. After some difficult navigation at the other end of the lake, the crew was safely landed with the baggage, and the boat hidden in some bushes. Then a trudge through the woods again for a couple of miles at least (distances, by the bye, are peculiar in these regions), till we issued on the bank of the Au Sable River where it leaves the Upper Lake. It was during this march that the Colonel
(who had brought his gun) got a shot at a certain bird, and knocked too many feathers from her not to have killed her, though neither he nor the dog could find her; and this was, positively, the only game he sighted the whole trip through.
But here a second boat was found hidden and ready, and one a little larger than the first. And now came the scene of our excursion. We seemed to have entered an enchanted land—to be floating on a veritable fairy lake. The vision stole over us like a dream. Then, too, it was “the heavenliest hour of heaven” for such a scene: the sun set, and twilight just begun. The picture, as a whole, will ever remain in my memory as, of its kind, the loveliest it has been my happiness to see. But, my dear friend, it “beggars all description.” I can only ask you to imagine it, while I jot down a few points of detail.
The Upper Au Sable differs strikingly from the Lower, although, of course, equally formed by, and a part of, the same river. It is less long, but also less narrow; and while to the left, as you glide up it, there stands but one mountain from shore to sky, to the right you behold other majestic summits towering above the wooded slope. So, again, on looking back, you see a gap of fantastic grandeur, and, fronting you, is a wide opening, relieved by a single peak. This peak, as we then saw it, wore the bewitching blue that distance and evening combine to “lend”—a charm which I, for one (and surely all lovers of nature), can never enough feast my eyes upon. The summits to the right and behind us were also robed in various shades of “purple,” which deepened with the twilight. The glassy water was covered here and there
with yellow-blossomed lilies. Even the green of the woods partook with the sky
“That clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure.”
Along the right bank two campfires were burning brightly. Toward one of these our guide was steering. He knew that his camp (constructed by himself, and therefore his by every right) was occupied, but was bent on turning the intruders out. We found a guide sitting calmly by the fire, and awaiting the return of his party to supper. They had gone up “Marcy,” he said, and two of them were ladies, and it would be very hard for them to have to seek another camp after their day’s climb. He had supposed our camp would not be wanted. There was one of his own on the other side, just as good, and we could have that. Well, of course, we three, when we heard of ladies, used our influence with Trumble, who slowly relented, and then rowed us over to the other shore. Yes, the camp was as good, and all about it; but we were on the wrong side for seeing the moon rise, and felt not a little disappointed.
While the guide was making the fire the Colonel proposed that we should row up the lake and look for deer. So we went; but not a sign of any such quadruped could we see. Our view of the lake, though, repaid us; and when we returned, we found a splendid fire and a savory supper. These fires are kept up all night. They are close in front of the camp. This species of “camp” is a hut or shed, built of logs and securely roofed with birch bark. Sloping upward from behind, it stands open to the air in front. The floor is
strewed with spruce boughs, or some other equally suitable; and when over this covering a “rubber blanket” is placed, you have quite a comfortable bed. Did we sleep, though? Very fairly for the first night out.
And here I am tempted to end this epistle; for no other day of our whole trip brought anything to compare with the exquisite surprises of this first day in the woods. But I know you will not be satisfied if I fail to take you up Mt. Marcy and round through Indian Pass.
Well, then, we started for “Marcy” (as the guides call it) next morning, right after breakfast. Our breakfast, by the way, was unusually good for Friday. The Colonel and Trumble had risen early and caught a nice string of brook trout. The brook was near the head of the lake. We also supped on trout, which the Colonel and I got from Marcy Brook, a mountain stream we reached about noon.
The ascent from the lake was decidedly a “pull,” the more so, no doubt, from the reluctance with which we took leave of the lake. We felt the climb that day more than any climb we had afterward. A mile, too, of this kind seems equal, in point of distance, to three or four miles on ordinary ground. Having rested by Marcy Brook for dinner, we pushed on in the afternoon for Panther Gorge, where we found a good camp unoccupied, which served us for the night. The Judge was very eager to scale Marcy that evening, in order to get the view from it by moonlight. We met a gentleman coming down, who said he had been on Marcy the night before, and described the moonlight view as the finest sight he had ever witnessed. We also met some ladies belonging to the
same party. Still, I think it was as well we did not go up that night; for it would have sorely taxed our strength. I have recently been told of persons who brought on disease, and died within a year or two after, by rash exertion among these mountains. This sort of thing seems to me consummate folly. More than that, it is a sin. We had come on the excursion not only to see, but, equally, to gain vigor. Having, then, plenty of time and ample provisions, there was no use in straining ourselves to gratify vanity or anything else.
Panther Gorge must have taken its name from that truculent animal having “infested” there (as Josh Billings would say). But the bounty set on beasts of prey current in these woods seems to have made them very scarce; for the only specimen we met with all the way was a dead bear rotting in a trap. The gorge itself is wild, but not particularly romantic. We got a view of it from a place called “The Notch,” near the summit of Mt. Marcy, where we rested to dine. There is a sort of camp at this spot, but a poor thing to pass a night in. There is also a most convenient spring. Indeed, we had reason to be very grateful for the springs and rills of delicious water which abounded all along our line of march.
The ascent of Marcy is singularly easy for a mountain of such height—one of the highest, indeed, this side of the Rocky range. I confess I had rather dreaded the climb, from an experience of Black Mountain, on Lake George. I was therefore quite agreeably surprised. On the other hand, I was almost equally disappointed by the view from the Cloud-splitter’s top. (Tahawus—i.e., Cloud-splitter—is the old Indian name for the mountain. What a
pity it was changed!—“nearly as barbarous as giving the name of one of Thackeray’s “Four Georges” to the beautiful Lac du Saint-Sacrement. Far better to have restored the Indian name—Horicon, Holy Lake.) It is rarely, I suppose, that a perfectly clear view is to be had from these mountains. We, probably, saw little more than half the horizon commanded by the height at which we stood. What we did see was worth seeing, certainly. Still, I, at least, remembered an incomparably finer view from the well-named Prospect Mountain at the head of Lake George.
Lake George we could not see, but only where it was. A number of small lakes were pointed out to us by the guide, among them the “Tear of the Clouds,” one of the reputed sources of the Hudson. This wretched little pond—for such it proved when we passed it on our way towards Lake Colden that afternoon—looked far from deserving of its poetical name, even at a distance; for we could see that it was yellow, being, in fact, a very shallow affair, and more like a stagnant marsh than a crystalline tear. They might as well have given some sidereal appellation to the sun-reflector which Mr. Colvin has erected on the exact apex of Marcy—a few sheets of tin, some of which had been torn off; for when, three days later, we were many miles away, we beheld this apparatus glittering like a star in the rays of the setting sun.
But here let me moralize a moment. Those to whom “high mountains are a feeling,” as they were to the “Pilgrim poet,” will not scale them purely for the view they afford, much less for the sake of vaunting a creditable feat. They will understand the longing so nobly expressed by Keats:
“To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world and worldling meant.”
That is, they will feel at home on mountain-tops, because uplifted from the transitory and the sordid, and reminded what it is to belong to eternity. But then, on the other hand, unless, with Wordsworth, they “have ears to hear”
“The still, sad music of humanity,”
they will miss the real lesson which the “wonder-works of God and Nature’s hand” are meant to teach—to wit, the infinitely greater worth and beauty of a single human soul, even the lowest and most degraded, as a world in which are wrought, or can be wrought, the “wonder-works” of grace. The love of Nature never yet made a misanthrope. The poet who could write
“To me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture,”
had been stung into misanthropy before he “fled” to Nature, and would rather have found in Nature’s bosom a sublime and tender love of mankind, had he not possessed (as some one has well said of him) “the eagle’s wing without the eagle’s eye,” so that “while he soared above the world” he “could not gaze upon the sun of Truth.”
Such having been my cogitations as I stood on Mt. Marcy, you will not think it pedantry that I record them here.
Descending, we returned to the camp at the Notch, where we had left our baggage, then struck into the trail for the Iron-Works (of which anon). This trail, though well worn, is very tiresome, owing to the number of trees that have fallen across it, obliging you to crawl a good deal. But we were glad to have seen the “Flumes” of the “Opalescent”—another poetic
name, which obviously means “beginning to be opal,” or resembling that hue. But, unfortunately, there are various kinds of opal; and since the water had nothing of a milky tinge, the bestower of the name must have meant the brown opal, an impure and inferior sort. I therefore deem the name infelicitous. The only color-epithet for clear and shallow waters, whether running or still, is amber. Witness Milton, in Paradise Lost:
“Where the river of bliss through midst of heaven
Rolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream.”
And again, in Comus:
“Sabrina fair!
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair!”
The “Flumes” are fine—too fine to be called flumes, according to the dictionary sense of the term. They are chasms of considerable depth and length. But I must hasten on, like the river by which we are loitering.
Our camp that night was on the shore of Colden Lake—quite a pretty little lake of its kind. But all lakes seemed (to me, at least) apologies for lakes after the Upper Au Sable. From our camp we could see where Lake Avalanche lay—not a mile, we were told, from Colden. The Judge and Colonel made an agreement with the guide to visit Lake Avalanche next morning early: but, when the time came, they found slumber too sweet, as I had anticipated they would. I had no hankering to accompany them, because, for one thing, they would have had to trudge through a regular swamp, the guide said—a kind of walking I particularly dislike; while, for another thing, it was easy to imagine the lake from the sloping cliffs that shut it in. These reminded
us of the Lower Au Sable, but, being bare and scarred, would have evidently a very inferior effect. So Avalanche, like “Yarrow,” went “unvisited.”
It was a matter of necessity now to push on to the Iron-Works. Our provisions had run out; so we made the seven miles that Sunday morning, and reached our destination in good time for dinner. The trail was the best we had seen yet. We passed “Calamity Pond,” so called from a Mr. Henderson, one of the owners of the Iron-Works, having shot himself there accidentally. He laid his revolver on a rock near the pond, and, on taking it up, discharged it into his side. On this rock now stands a neat monument erected by filial affection.
As we entered the deserted village still called the Iron-Works (though said works have been abandoned twenty years), a shower of rain fell—the first we had met. (Such a run of fine weather as we had been favored with is very rare in the Adirondacks.) The only occupied house belongs to a Mr. M——, who, while disclaiming to keep an inn or public-house of any kind, accommodates passing tourists, and even boarders. The table was good enough, especially after our frugal meals in the woods; but I cannot say as much for the beds in comparison with the camps. He had to put us for the night in another house belonging to him, but which had not been used, he said, this year, and looked as if it had not been used for several years. The bedsteads, too, surprised us by not breaking down in the night; and two of us had to occupy one bed. However, we contrived to sleep pretty well, and rose next morning quite ready for “Indian Pass.” Fortunately, Mrs. M——
was able to let us have enough provisions for the remainder of our tramp; but when we came to “foot” the bill, it was unexpectedly “steep.” People must “make,” you see, in a place like this.
Starting after breakfast that Monday morning, we took the shorter route by way of Lake Henderson. We were not sorry to get a good view of this lake, but our voyage on it was far from pleasant. A guide from M——’s came with us. He had two boats: one a sort of “scow” with a paddle, the other a boat like Trumble’s, only lighter and smaller. Trumble and brother, dog and baggage, went in the scow; we three in the other, with the guide for oarsman. Our boat was loaded to within three inches of the water’s edge, and, there being a slight breeze, it was the greatest risk I ever ran of an upset. Had the breeze increased, we must have gone over. All three of us could swim; but to risk a drenching with its consequences, and under such circumstances, seemed to me the most provoking stupidity. One of us might easily have gone in the scow. The guide was to blame, for he knew the boat’s capacity. However, through the favor of Our Lady and the angels, under whose joint protection our excursion had been placed, we were safely landed, and soon found ourselves in the woods once more, and on a trail that seemed made for wild-cats.
But now our fears of rain were verified. The menacing west had not hindered us from setting out; but we found the shelter of trees inadequate, and, of course, they kept dripping upon us after the shower had passed over. In short, we got wet enough to feel very uncomfortable; and the sun could not
penetrate to us satisfactorily. We had hoped the rain was a mere thunder-shower; but when we saw more clouds, dense and black, we made up our minds that we were “in for it.” Trumble put forth the assurance that nobody ever caught cold in the woods. But I, less contented with this than the others, resolved to try the supernatural. I vowed Our Blessed Lady some Masses for the souls in purgatory most devoted to her; and behold, as each succeeding cloud came resolutely on, the sun broke through it triumphantly, till, after an hour or two, all danger had disappeared, and we were left to finish our journey under a cloudless sky. Of course this favorable turn may have been due to purely natural causes; but I mention it as what it seemed to me, because I know you believe in “special providences,” and always rejoice in acknowledging Our Blessed Mother’s goodness and power.
The trail became more perilous to eyes and ankles than any we had followed yet. Indeed, it was a constant marvel that we met with no sprain or fracture. Such an accident would have been extremely awkward, remote as we were from the habitations of men, to say nothing of surgical aid. But, of course, we took every care, and the prayers of friends, together with our own, drew Heaven’s protection round us.
At last we came in sight of the gigantic cliff which forms the western side of the pass—very grand, certainly, but not what we had anticipated from the glowing accounts of brother-pilgrims. Then, too, we saw but that one side; being on the other ourselves, and not between the two, as we had supposed we should be. When we reached “Summit Rock,” we stopped for
dinner. The view that met our retrospection from this rock repaid our climb. In fact, it was this view alone that made us think anything of “Indian Pass.” “Summit Rock,” though, is not easy to scale; and I, having taken the wrong track, in turning to descend had the narrowest escape from a very serious fall. I shall always feel grateful for that preservation when I recall our Adirondack experiences. How forcibly and consolingly the words of the Psalmist came to me then, as they do now: “Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis. In manibus portabunt te, ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum” (Ps. xc. 11, 12.[87] )
We camped that afternoon, and for the night, at a spot about “half way”—that is, half way between the Iron-Works and North Elba (a distance of eighteen miles); for the pass proper is of no great length. The camp there is excellent. We reached it in time for the Judge and myself to get a capital bath, while the Colonel caught a string of trout, before supper. We did not cook all the fish for that meal, but kept a supply for the morrow’s breakfast. The trout thus reserved were hung upon a stump about fifteen yards from the camp, at the risk of having them stolen in the night by some animal. And, sure enough, some animal was after them in the night, for the dog got up and growled, and went outside; but this scared the marauder away, for we found the fish untouched in the morning.
Tuesday dawned serenely, and we lost no time after breakfast in
getting under way for Blinn’s Farm—our chosen destination in North Elba County. The walk seemed interminably long, but was almost all down-hill, and over ground covered with dried leaves. We lunched, rather than dined, on the march; for we knew a good dinner was to be had at the farm. The last difficult feat to be performed was crossing our old friend the Au Sable, which flows between the hill we had descended and the slope leading up to Blinn’s. We had to take boots and socks off, and make our way over a few large stones, some of which were awkwardly far apart. The others managed it all right. I might as well have kept boots and socks on; for just as I got to the last stone but one, and where a jump was necessary, I slipped and came down on my hands, sousing boots and socks under water. Even this, though, was preferable to slipping ankle-deep into black mud, as I had done again and again on the tramp; and when we gained the house and changed our things, I was as well off as anybody.
Fortunately, they had room for us. Very pleasant people. And they got us up a first-rate dinner, the most delectable feature whereof was (to me, at least) some rashers of English bacon. This and the farm itself, with its look of peace and honest toil, took me back to
long ago—to my first English home; for the pretty little parsonage where I was born was close to two farmhouses. But farm, dinner, and all were nothing to the view commanded by this spot—the most exquisite panorama of mountains it had ever been my happiness to contemplate. Facing us, as we turned to look back on the wilderness we had escaped from, was Indian Pass, the true character of which is best seen from this distance. To the left of us stood Marcy in majestic silence. Between him and the pass were the “scarpèd cliffs” of Avalanche. From south to west was a lower line of heights, apparelled in a thick blue haze. And when, an hour later, we saw the sun set along this line, the evening azure settled on the other peaks around us, and Marcy’s signal gleamed and flashed like a red star.
And here I must bid you adieu, my dear friend. However poorly I have complied with your request, it has been no small pleasure to me. I hope you will catch a fair glimpse of the Adirondacks, which is all I pretend to give. But I must add that when we three travellers got back to this dear old lake, we were unanimous in declaring that, after all we had seen, there was nothing to surpass Lake George, nor anything that would wear so well. Vale.
[87] “For he hath given his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest, perchance, thou dash thy foot against a stone.”