VI.—TO SARANAC AND BACK.
Few indeed are the pleasures that can be compared with the keen enjoyment of travel in a new and beautiful country, where every sense is stimulated by the purest and most aromatic of atmospheres, and where rocks, trees, rivers, lakes, and skies offer every possibility of combination imaginable under the structural conditions of the region. The life of the scout and the pioneer is a constant succession of pleasant surprises and unanticipated adventure; every hilltop promises a new picture, every dawn and sunset an additional novelty for that gallery, longer than the Louvre, and fuller than the Vatican, of which memory holds the key and is sole warden. Hardship and even danger are enclosed in surroundings so beautiful, so fresh and invigorating, that they seem only to add zest to the pursuit, to give dignity and significance to an occupation which might perhaps otherwise be stigmatized as mere selfish vagabondage. Oh, the freedom of the wild woods! the rest to the soul of the shadowy forest and flower-strewn turf! The wind may toss the locks, the sun brown the skin, and the brambles tear the garments, but there are none to cavil, none to count the gray hairs or the freckles, or see that said garments are of last year's fashioning. If the eyes look kindly, the peering squirrels will be content, and if the voice be gentle, the birds will ask no more, except, perhaps, a crumb or two from the slender stock of woodsman's fare. The deer and the trout will not question our philosophy, knowing instinctively, as we do, that there is a great God who made us all, and who ever encompasseth us with a love surpassing every created conception. They will only ask of our good will, and that our absolute need be the limit of our tax upon their lives. With the sky for roof, and the beech and the pine for friends and teachers, the body has time to strengthen, and the conscience and inner self to grow steadily upright, that they may overtop trifles, rise to the height of heavenly inspirations, and hence win power to withstand the surging floods of bewildering human passion. When men meet such souls, they are amazed at their calmness and simplicity, and dimly guess that the All-Powerful, through His created universe, has been whispering to them secrets of strength, perseverance, patience, and charity.
But this subject is boundless as its origin, and we must now to the particulars of a personal experience, which, if limited, may yet be of service to others desirous of journeying in the same region.
Having made a thorough acquaintance with the environs of Elizabethtown, Elsie and I could no longer resist the blandishment of the blue mountains ever beckoning us westward through the rocky portal of the Keene Pass. July 13th, at six A.M., we started in the weekly stage for Saranac, thirty-six miles distant. The morning was bright; a few low clouds hung about the tops of the higher hills, and the wind blew from the east, a direction which here, contrary to our experience near the seaboard, by no means implies rain. So great is the distance of the Adirondac plateau from the sea, so numerous its ranges, and so great the elevation of the ridges lying between it and the ocean, that we found our ordinary weather calculations all come to nought, east winds blowing for days without a drop of rain, and western breezes bringing clouds and moisture.
The road to Keene winds along a branch of the Boquet River, on which are one or two quite pretty falls, with consequent mills; it ascends continually until it reaches the foot of the steep rocks forming the Keene Pass. The views back over the Boquet Valley and toward the Green Mountains of Vermont are very lovely, and those obtained in descending the western slope of this, the Boquet range, are magnificent. Soon left behind are the high cliffs and the steep slide, where a gathering avalanche of rocks and earth swept through a forest, carrying off a great belt of timber, wherewith to strew the little valley, and block the road and stream below. The rugged mountains on either hand have been burnt over, and send up into the blue ether bare, white, foot-enticing peaks. At the base of the western declivity lies the valley of the East Branch of the Au Sable, and beyond, the great Adirondac range, overtopped by Whiteface and Mount Tahawus. We greeted these giants with due reverence, hoping for a nearer acquaintance, for only their extreme summits are visible from that point, Whiteface bold and peaked, Tahawus round and indistinct. The great ridge, hiding all but their heads, is here jagged or flowing, steep, and dark with spruce and pine. It rises like an impassable wall; of a clear morning, a frowning barrier of granite and forest; of a hazy afternoon, the shining, glowing rampart of some celestial city.
The village of Keene is a straggling collection of dwellings, with an inn, a post office, and a store or two. It lies in the intervale bordering the East Branch of the Au Sable, and is twelve miles from Elizabethtown.
Thus far, our only fellow traveller had been a school girl, going home for the summer vacation. At Keene our number was increased by the addition of another damsel, with accompaniment of two hounds, Spart and Prince, bound for Saranac. When first fastened behind the open wagon (our stage), they began a vigorous quarrel, which struck us very much as a matrimonial squabble, both tied, and neither having a fair chance for a free fight. Our driver, an excellent specimen of the upright and intelligent man of Northern New York, cracked his whip, increased the existing merriment by calling out, 'Wal, dogs, hev ye done fightin'?' and started up the long declivity leading over the Adirondac range, through Pitch-off Mountain (another pass), to the plains of North Elba. The hill is a long one, the cliffs of the mountain pass exceedingly picturesque, and the black tarn under the beetling crags suggestive of Poe's 'House of Usher.' Long, however, ere we reached this point, Spart had gnawed through his rope, and was trotting beside the wagon. Our driver vainly endeavored to refasten him. Although mild of visage, and apparently good-natured, he showed so formidable a set of teeth, that it was thought prudent to desist, and trust to his following his companion, who still trotted along, coughing and choking, and almost stifled by our own dust, blown after us by the east wind. After this attempt, Spart evidently played shy of our whole party, and, having raced ahead during a few miles, finally disappeared in the woods, probably attracted by the scent of game.
We reached North Elba (twelve miles from Keene) about noon, and there stopped to dine at Scott's, a place widely and favorably known to travellers in that section of country. Round the plain of North Elba tower the very highest peaks of the Adirondacs; Tahawus (Marcy), Golden, McIntire, and the beautiful gateway of the Indian Pass to the south, and to the north the scarred sides of Whiteface and the bold forms of the mountains bordering the Wilmington notch. Descending the plain into the village, we came to the West Branch of the Au Sable, which rises in the Indian Pass, and flows past the former dwelling of John Brown. The little wooden tenement is in full view from the road, and stands in the midst of the clearing made by old John himself, with the aid of his sons. His grave is in the garden near the house, beside a huge rock. The place is of his own selection, and is now visited by many who, while reprehending the means taken by the gray-haired enthusiast for the accomplishment of his designs, cannot but rejoice that the final freedom of every human being within the limits of our country seems so probable a result of the present struggle. The neighbors—even those of opposing political creeds—give John Brown an excellent character for integrity and charitable deeds. His family have all left the region, and are, I believe, scattered through the great West.
Crossing the Au Sable, we soon came to the tamarac forests and whortleberry plains, so characteristic of the tract between that river and the Saranac lakes. We had left the arbor vitæ and the juniper with the Boquet range, the beech and maple with the valleys and the lower portions of the Adirondac, and now found ourselves chiefly amid birches, yellow and white, spruce firs, and interminable stretches of fantastic tamarac. The hills lower as we reach the lake region proper, and, while still picturesque, the Saranacs can boast no near mountains such as skirt Lake Placid and the two 'Ponds of the Au Bable.' Tahawus and Whiteface are indeed visible from the Saranac waters, but far away, and shorn of much of their grandeur. The lakes themselves are elevated some twelve hundred feet, perhaps, above the level of the sea, and the climate is correspondingly bracing and delightful. There are at Saranac two inns, at either of which the traveller can make himself very comfortable. At six o'clock P. M., we found ourselves at the house immediately upon the lake, and, after an excellent supper, were ready for a row upon the clear, shining water. The evening was delightful, the sun just setting, the low, wooded shores (rising beyond into higher hills) flooded with golden light, the temperature elysian, our oarsman broad browed, broad shouldered, and athletic, our boat one of the fairy craft, sharp at both ends, and light as possible, borne by guides over portages from lake to lake, and the whole scene as placidly beautiful and reposeful as the most vivid imagination could desire. War, contention, suffering, even the law, trade, politics, or any acute state of feeling, seemed incomprehensible excrescences upon the normal state of man's being, which there, indeed, appeared to be an endless floating over placid waters, with the tinkling of oars and the even song of birds for all needful sounds, and those long, low, slanting rays of golden light forever stealing through half-closed lids, and steeping the nerves and brain and tired senses in long dreams of peace and quietude—dreams without the wearisomeness of monotony or the shock of awaking.
Night, however, came at last, and with it forgetfulness; morning, too, came in due season, and with it, the daily call for active thought and exertion.
From Saranac, by means of boats, guides, and camping out, delightful excursions can be made through the lakes, the two Saranacs, Round, Long, and Racket Lakes, and the Racket River. This region has been much travelled and often described.
Our faces, however, must be turned eastward, and the following day found us again in our wagon, en route for Placid Lake. To reach this, we left the return stage about two miles west of North Elba, and walked northward two miles through open country and some beautiful woodland, until we came out upon Bennet's Pond, on whose shore stands the pleasant farmhouse where we intended to pass the night. The owner and his family were absent, but we found a smiling little handmaiden, who brought us a cooling draught, and an antique whaler, who offered to show us the way to Lake Placid and give us a row.
Placid Lake is a beautiful, clear sheet of water, about five miles long and two or three wide. It is divided down the centre by three islands, charmingly wooded. The surrounding mountains are high, and at the north-easterly end rises Whiteface, nearly, if not quite, 5,000 feet in height, the lower portion clad in deciduous trees, the middle in spruce, and the upper rising bare and white, with a great slide of many hundred feet extending from the top toward the lake, and marking out the steep pathway by which the ascent must be made. Bennet's Pond is about a mile and a half long, and half a mile broad. Bennet is a contraction of Benedict—Benedictus—Blessèd—and never, surely, did blue expanse of limpid crystal better merit the appellation—Lake of the Blessèd. Its shores are gently sloping, and beyond the nearer hills rise the giant summits of the highest peaks. These two sheets of water are within a quarter of a mile of each other, but have no communication, and are divided by a ridge of land, chiefly cleared, from whose top the view is as beautiful as any view from the same elevation to be obtained in America. To the north lies Lake Placid, with its shining waves, its islands, and the stately Whiteface; and to the south, the heaven-reflecting Lake of the Blessèd, crowned by the noble dome of Tahawus, and his splendid retinue, Colden, McMartin, McIntire, Wallface, Dial Mountain, Nipple Top, and Moriah. To the east and west are wooded hills, completing the panorama, and enclosing a scene as enchanting as any single one the writer ever looked upon.
The following day our host, who had meantime returned, drove us down through the Wilmington Pass to Upper Jay, and thence through Keene to the Keene Flats, a distance in all of between twenty and twenty-five miles.
The Wilmington Pass, though not so rough and rugged as its far-famed rival, the Indian Pass, is far more beautiful, and quite as majestic. The great cliffs overhanging the road, and the swift Au Sable, the fine rapids, and the fall of over a hundred feet, the noble views of Whiteface and the dark, steep peaks rising round it, all combine to render this one of the most impressive mountain chasms we have ever visited. After passing through the defile, we left the West Branch of the Au Sable, and crossed a low ridge to Upper Jay, where we again came upon the East Branch, and ploughed our way through heavy sands to Keene, where we dined, and whence the road up the valley to the Keene Flats becomes firmer and less tedious. The way was bordered by rich fields of grass and grain, potatoes in abundance, flax in pale azure flower, and acres blue with the beautiful campanula or harebell. At the inn in Keene we met our rebellious friend Spart, who, having tired of his chase, had returned to his former headquarters.
Toward the 'Flats,' five miles above Keene, the intervale grows narrower, and the bordering mountains become loftier, wilder, and correspondingly more grand. Dix's Peak towers above the southern extremity of the valley.
We passed the night at a comfortable farmhouse, there being no inn at the 'Flats,' and the following morning were driven back to Elizabethtown, with the increased store of information, health, and admiration for the Adirondac country we had amassed during our three and a half days' scouting excursion.