Camps and Trails

by Henry Abbott

The trail to Bald Mountain Pond was marked many years ago by the Indians. It is now a well beaten path, known and used by Summer residents and boarders along both shores of the lake through fourteen miles of its length. They came in motor boats, in parties of four, of six, of a dozen, and twenty-five or thirty at a time. It was a short and easy walk of a half an hour through the woods to the camp. The picnickers did the rest. The two pictures "before" and "after" herewith, show what happened in one short season to the Judge's camp.

The High Ball Brook Camp — after

Most of the camps that Bige and I have built, are too far from the main lines of motor boat travel, and they require the expenditure of too much effort to reach them, to make them attractive to the average picnicker. Yet, mindful of the fate of the High Ball Brook Camp, we have in some cases thought it wise to camouflage the trail. Many novel and some ingenious devices have been employed to this end.

One misguiding scheme, we successfully practiced as follows. At a place where the trail should, properly, describe an elbow or a curve, the blazing of trees would continue on in a straight line, leading possibly over a hill or down through a swamp where it would peter out and end in nothing. Then returning to the elbow or turning point, the real trail would be marked by taking bunches of moss off the hardwood trees and nailing them onto balsam or spruce trees. This practice would be followed for fifty yards or more, when the blazes would begin to appear again. Of course, an old and experienced woodsman, if he were suspicious of a trick, would never be caught by this one; as he would know that moss never grows on a live spruce tree, except in small patches near the roots in a wet or swampy place, while an entire Russian beard of moss can be seen anywhere on beech, maple or birch trees. Indeed, at the place where we thus marked our trail, one could, without moving a step, count twenty or more similar bunches of whiskers on as many hardwood trees within his range of vision. However, the picnickers never got by.

Whiskers On A Spruce

The struggle for existence, the elbowing, pushing and crowding of individuals, and the final survival of the stronger, the more fortunately placed, or the one who arrived and got established first, is nowhere in nature more marked or more conspicuous than among forest trees. The weaker ones die before they mature, because there is not "room in the sun" for the branches of all; and because, as the roots develop and increase in size, there is not enough room in the ground for the roots of all. Also, there is not enough plant food in the soil to sustain life in all the trees that get a start in the forest. Hence, it is, that in the older woods one can always find, still standing but dead and dry, half grown trees of all kinds. Of these, the hardwoods make the very best fuel for campfires. And a dead spruce six to ten inches in diameter makes excellent logs for building an open camp or a cabin. The smaller dry spruces, three to four inches in diameter, make better roof timbers than do green ones. But they must be taken while standing. A tree lying on the ground in the shade, absorbs and retains moisture and it soon decays and is unfit for use for any purpose. Thus, while conserving live forest trees, one may obtain material better suited to his purpose than if he had used green timber having a market value.

The State owns more than two million acres of forest land in the northern mountains. A few years ago, it was permissible to build log camps on State lands. Recent laws forbid this, and now camping on forest land owned by the State is limited to the use of tents.

Now, when Bige and I decide to build a shack we select a spot on some lumber companies' property and then try to get from the owners, permission to build. Such a permit is usually not difficult to get, but one must always furnish evidence of his knowledge of woodcraft, especially of his ability to so construct a camp fireplace as to prevent the fire spreading to the woods and thus destroying a lot of property.