Somewhere between the third and fourth mileboards I stopped short with an exclamation. There, straight before me, over the long eastern shoulder of Moosilauke, beyond the big Jobildunk Ravine, loomed or floated a shining snow-white mountain-top. Nothing could have been more beautiful. It was the crest of Mount Washington, I assumed, though even with the aid of a glass I could make out no sign of buildings, which must have been matted with new-fallen snow. I took its identity for granted, I say. The truth is, I became badly confused about it afterward, such portions of the range as came into view having an unfamiliar aspect; but later still, on arriving at the summit, found that my first idea had been correct.
That sudden, heavenly apparition gave me one of those minutes that are good as years. Once, indeed, in early October, I had seen Mount Washington when it was more resplendent: freshly snow-covered throughout, and then, as the sun went down, lighted up before my eyes with a rosy glow, brighter and brighter and brighter, till it seemed all on fire within. But even that unforgettable spectacle had less of unearthly beauty, was less a work of pure enchantment, I thought, than this detached, fleecy-looking piece of aerial whiteness, cloud stuff or dream stuff, yet whiter than any cloud, lying at rest yonder, almost at my own level, against the deep blue of the forenoon sky.
All this while, the birds, which had been few from the start,—black-throated greens and blues, Blackburnians, oven-birds, a bay-breast, blue yellow-backs, siskins, Swainson thrushes, a blue-headed vireo, winter wrens, rose-breasted grosbeaks, chickadees, grouse, and snowbirds,—had grown fewer and fewer, till at last, among these stunted, low-branched spruces, with the snow under them, there was little else but an occasional myrtle warbler (“The brave myrtle,” I kept saying to myself), with its musical, soft trill, so out of place,—the voice of peaceful green valleys rather than of stormy mountain-tops,—yet so welcome. Once a gray-cheeked thrush called just above me. These impenetrable upper woods are the gray-cheeks’ summer home,—a worthy one; but I heard nothing of their wild music, and doubted whether they had yet arrived in full summer force.
It was past eleven o’clock when I came out at the clearing by the woodpile, with half the world before me. From this point it was but a little way to the bare ridge connecting the South Peak—up which I had been trudging all the forenoon—and the main summit. This, with its little hotel, that looked as if it were in danger of sliding off the mountain northward, was straight before me across the ravine, a long but easy mile away.
On the ridge I found myself all at once in something like a gale of ice-cold wind. Who could have believed it? It was well I had brought a sweater; and squatting behind a lucky clump of low evergreens, I wormed my way into what is certainly the most comfortable of all garments for such a place,—as good, at least, as two overcoats. Now let the wind whistle, especially as it was at my back, and was bearing me triumphantly up the slope. So I thought, bravely enough, till the trail took a sudden shift, and the gale caught me on another tack. Then I sang out of the other corner of my mouth, as I used to hear country people say. I no longer boasted, but saved my breath for better use.
Wind or no wind, it is an exhilaration to walk here above the world. Once a bird chirps to me timidly from the knee-wood close by. I answer him, and out peeps a white-throat. “You here!” he says; “so early!” At my feet is plenty of Greenland sandwort,—faded, winter-worn, gray-green tufts, tightly packed among the small boulders. Whatever lives here must lie low and hang on. And with it is the shiny-leaved mountain cranberry,—Vaccinium Vitis-Idæa. Let me never omit that pretty name. Neither cranberry nor sandwort shows any sign of blossom or bud as yet; but it is good to know that they will both be ready when the clock strikes. I can see them now, pink and white, just as they will look in July—nay, just as they will look a thousand years hence.
Again my course alters, and the wind lets me lean back upon it as it lifts me forward. Who says we are growing old? The years, as they pass, may turn and look at us meaningly, as if to say, “You have lived long enough;” yet even to us the climbing of a mountain road (though by this time it must be a road, or something like it) is still only the putting of one foot before the other.
So I come at last to the top, and make haste to get into the lee of the house, which is tightly barred, of course, just as its owners left it seven or eight months ago. The wind chases me round the corners, one after another; but by searching I discover a nook where it can hit me no more than half the time. Here I sit and look at the mountains,—a glorious company: Mount Washington and its fellows, with all their higher parts white; the sombre mass of the Twins on this side of them; and, nearer still, the long, sharp, purple crest of dear old Lafayette and its southern neighbors. So many I can name. The rest are mountains only; a wilderness of heaped-up, forest-covered land; a prospect to dilate the soul.
My expectation has been to stay here for two hours or more; but the wind is merciless, and after going out over the broad, bare, boulder-sprinkled summit till I can see down into Franconia (which looks pretty low and pretty far off, though I distinguish certain of the buildings clearly enough), I begin to feel that I shall enjoy the sight of my eyes better from some sheltered position on the upper part of the road. Even on the ridge, however, I take advantage of every tuft of spruces to stand still for a bit, looking especially at the mountain itself, so big, so bare, and so solid: East Peak, South Peak, and the Peak, as they are called, although neither of them is in the slightest degree peaked, with the great gulf of Jobildunk—in which Baker’s River rises—wedged among them. If the word Moosilauke means a “bald place,” as it is said to do, then we have here another proof of the North American Indian’s genius for fitting words to things.[3]
Even to-day, windy and cold as it is, a butterfly passes over now and then (mostly red admirals), and smaller insects flit carelessly about. Insects are capable mountaineers, as I have often found occasion to notice. The only time I was ever on the sharp point of Mount Adams, where my companion and I had barely room to stand together, the air about our heads was black with insects of all sorts and sizes, a veritable cloud; and when we unscrewed the Appalachian Club’s brass bottle to sign the roll of visitors, we found that the signers immediately before us, after putting down a date and their names, had added, “Plenty of bugs.” And surely I was never pestered worse by black flies than once, years ago, on this very summit of Moosilauke. All the hours of a long, breathless, tropical July day they made life miserable for me. Better a thousand times such a frosty, man-compelling wind as I am now fleeing from.