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IV
OVER VERMONT'S HIGHEST SPOTS THREE of us sat on the
westerly slope of the Sterling
Range of the Green Mountains, across which we had been toiling all
through a
richly humid July afternoon. A few years back the loggers had stripped
the
timber from many hundred acres along that mountain-side. In place of
the
shadowy spruce forest there had come up a jungle of cherry, poplar,
mountain
ash, and raspberry vines, a cover that let in the sun and shut out the
air. We
had stopped to mop for a moment, and to sample a trickle of the first
live
water we had seen for some hours. "I was thinking a while ago," said one of
my comrades, "that I never was so hot before in all the days of my
life,
and that this is a poor time of year for mountain hiking in this
latitude." "A man sweats just as hard, doesn't he,"
retorted the other man, "when he paddles up a mountain on snowshoes in
February? " About the only difference that I could see
was that
the black flies and "no-see-urns," that rose at us in swarms out of
the brush whenever we paused on that July day, are blissfully missing
in
February. Indeed, had we postponed our trip but a single month we might
have
escaped those pests which are reputed to mysteriously disappear in
August. It was three members of that outfit that
had
sauntered through the White Hills the year before who were now seeking
the wild
places of Vermont as a vacation ground. The call of the Long Trail of
the Green
Mountain Club had come to us. In the first place, we were a bit ashamed
at
realizing how little we knew of the physical geography of the Green
Mountain
State. And yet were we wholly to blame? Fifty years ago Vermont people
conceived the idea that their mountains were destined to win public
appreciation as summer resorts, and hotels were built on a few of the
principal
summits. Of these but one is still entertaining guests. The others
failed to
receive the anticipated appreciation and long since disappeared by
fire, porcupines,
or decay. Within the past few years the tramping cult having been
espoused by
the Vermonters themselves, the Green Mountain Club has energetically
begun the
systematic development of the walking possibilities, and the region is
surely
destined now to become popular with the hiker. They have the hills, and
the
State has been doing its part toward the protection and restoration of
the
forests. The trails are stretching out north and south along the main
ranges
year by year. Steadily these are being improved, and as the traffic
increases
so will the incidental facilities, such as lodging-camps, multiply. For our week afield we had chosen that
section of the
Long Trail that tops the highest peaks and ridges of the north central
portion
of the range, linking Sterling Mountain with Mount Mansfield, master of
them
all, and so south to Bolton's wooded crown and over the ridges of
Camel's Hump.
For the same reasons that attracted us, this section of the trail seems
likely
to win great popularity, leading as it does to two of the highest and
best-known summits, and past the doors of hospitable camps and hotels
that are
happily located a fair day's march apart. Should any be tempted to follow in our
footsteps, let
him not suppose that this is a stroll on graded paths where ankle-ties
may be
worn in comfort. There are stretches, in fact, that are rough enough to
please
the fancy of the toughest woodsman, and yet the way is sufficiently
clear for
any one familiar with mountain trails to follow safely. It was
pathetic to
note the track of a woman's foot in a muddy bit of trail, the pointed
toe,
narrow shank, and peg heel, all spelling plainly the fatigue and
general
discomfort that must have been the wearer's lot for days after that
experience.
Let the novice, whatever the gender, take advice from the experienced
before
setting forth, and sanely following the same go merrily tripping, where
otherwise it might be a woeful hobble. To do full justice to the course of the
trail as it
lies from Johnson village, just north of Sterling Mountain, over Mount
Mansfield to Camel's Hump, requires at least four full days of
regulation
summer daylight length. For the more leisurely yet another day, or even
more,
would be added without waste of time. It is not difficult to surmise
into which
class our party naturally fell. In truth, we would cheerfully have
exchanged
our first day's experience for something much less energetic. Fifteen
miles on
a long summer's day is not an inordinately extended march in the
mountains for
any fairly seasoned walker. It is confessed that we were
temperamentally
averse to hiking, at least in so far as that word is synonymous with
hustling,
and greatly given to viewing the landscape o'er in leisurely fashion
from every
coign of vantage. To feel the pinch of time along a beautiful forest
trail, or
on a sightly ridge path, is as annoying as poverty in the financial
sense.
When one has journeyed a hundred miles or more to visit new scenes, he
feels
that he wants his money's worth. It is the firm conviction of
old-timers that
"hustle "is a word that should be left in town with store clothes
when a walking trip is on. That fifteen miles or so across the
Sterling Range
from Johnson village, on the St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain
Railroad, to
the depths of Smuggler's Notch, is a stretch to be approached with
respectful
consideration. By one mountaineer the distance was given to us as "at
least fifteen miles." By yet another it was given with greater
exactness,
so we later thought, even if with less mathematical precision, when he
said it
was farther than he wanted to foot it on a hot day. With its ups and
downs of
contour, and its overs and unders of windfalls (the latter a temporary
handicap not likely to be present in every season), enough foot pounds
of
effort were required to have taken us up and across the Presidential
Peaks of
the White Mountains. For one equipped with his own bed and board, a
cabin, readily
found on a side trail, is available between Morse Mountain and the
Madonna, ten
miles or less south of Johnson. On a less perspiry day, and with a
cleared
trail, the need for such a halting-place would not be felt. A mountain tarn is ever a pleasing
feature, and the
three-lobed Sterling Pond, that mirrors the forest at the western base
of the
Madonna's cone, is a delightful spot to tarry by before making the
long
downward plunge into Smuggler's Notch. Two routes lead thither from the
westerly end of the pond, both attractive in their way. The shorter
leads south
along a timbered ridge to descend over the old logging roads down the
steep
southern cut-over face of the mountain, with views across the notch to
Mount
Mansfield. The longer way follows down through the forest to the
northern end
of the notch, near the height of land, where it joins the highroad. In
distance
the latter is longer, but it has its compensations, and it includes the
passage
of the beautiful notch as a part of the trip. Worth while as it is the Sterling
Mountain link is
not an essential feature of the Mount Mansfield-Camel's Hump jaunt,
except for
those who tramp purely for tramping's sake. The link across Bolton
Mountain,
between Mount Mansfield and Camel's Hump, may similarly be eliminated;
at least
until the view from Bolton Mountain, which ought to be impressive, is
made
available by the erection of a tower on the wooded summit. One of the
advantages of the Long Trail is in the ease with which it may be broken
in upon
or left on any day. So Barnes' Camp, the tramper's haven at the
southerly end
of Smuggler's Notch, is readily found from the railroad at Waterbury
via the
trolley line to Stowe. A night at the camp may profitably be followed
by a
forenoon's exploration of the notch, which in two miles has more to
show in
natural curiosities than many another more celebrated mountain cleft.
Were it
not for the great spring that furnishes an outlet for Sterling Pond,
fifteen
hundred feet or more above, or for the house-size fragments of Mount
Mansfield's
cliffs that have come down from time to time to choke the gorge, or for
the
great caves and early summer snowbanks in the eastern flank of the big
mountain, the notch would still be an attraction because of the
towering rock
walls rising sheer a full thousand feet on either hand. Smuggler's Notch enjoys the geographical
distinction
of being the only pass through the main Green Mountain Range that has a
north-and-south trend, all other passes leading east and west.
Appropriate to
its name there is a tradition of somewhat elusive origin, and
apparently not
widely known, that lends a flavor of frontier picturesqueness to the
place. In
ye olden time, somewhat more than a hundred years ago, or more
explicitly just
prior to the war with Great Britain in 1812, Congress placed a ban on
all
commercial dealings between the States and Canada. As a result every
"Stealthy
Steve "along the border saw his chance to turn a perfectly sound though
dishonest dollar in the crafty trade of smuggling. In this the Vermont
border
played an active part, much of the plunder being transported across
Champlain,
where brushes with the customs officers were not infrequent. It was one
of
these illicit freighters, so the story goes, who, being hard pressed by
the
revenue men, fled to this mountain fastness with his family. Some there
are who
say that a mysterious man, who long ago lived in the southern end of
the notch,
was probably the escaped and remorseful smuggler, while others point
to a
poem, written in the early fifties by a resident of Stowe, in which the
smuggler is finally rescued from his exile by a son, once a member of
the
band, but who had become prosperous in a supposedly reformed career in
the
great West. Be all this as it may, one can see the cave to-day wherein
this
smuggler, and perchance many another too, may have hidden. Many years ago a small hotel was built
near the great
spring, but although its day has passed, the spring remains as one of
the chief
attractions of the notch. Issuing from the foot of the cliffs of
Sterling
Mountain, it wells up at the estimated rate of between one hundred and
two
hundred gallons to the minute, and maintains a constant temperature,
winter
and summer, of approximately fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Geologists have
apparently
arrived at the conclusion that this water works its way down through
the rock
fissures from Sterling Pond. Of the great rocks that have fallen into
the notch
from the Mansfield side, two are of especial note on account of their
truly
enormous size, and because an interval of exactly one hundred years
elapsed
between their falls. Barton's Rock, so-called because it fell on the
day when a
new son of the hills, Barton Ingraham, was born in 1811, is surpassed
in size
by the King Rock, estimated to weigh not far from five thousand tons,
which
was torn from the cliffs a thousand feet above in 1911. The notch is
sure to
be recognized as one of the great scenic features of New England. It
but awaits
the completion of the State highway through to the valley of the
Lamoille River
to bring it into connection with an appreciative public. From Barnes' Camp it is an easy
afternoon's climb of
two thousand feet, or a trifle more, along just rising two miles of
most
enchanting forest trail, to the little hotel that stands midway on the
four-miles-long ridge of Mount Mansfield, the true-enough high spot of
Vermont.
This hotel enjoys the distinction of being the sole survivor of the
three Green
Mountain crest retreats, built at about the same period, or just before
the
Civil War, the others having been located on Camel's Hump and on
Killington
Peak. This one on Mount Mansfield, the oldest of the three, dates from
1857,
and still breasts the storms as gallantly as of yore. A night there is
not
imperative if one will devote a long full day to crossing the mountain
from
Smuggler's Notch to Nebraska Notch, which is the next lodging-station
along the
trail. No leisurely mountain lover would willingly hasten here,
however, for
the big mountain in its rocks and flora holds much to interest even the
amateur
in geological and botanical science, and there are two peaks, a mile
and a half
apart, to explore for a comparison of views, not to speak of caverns
whose
galleries are said to ramify for fully two hundred feet within the
summit
rocks. Mount Mansfield, with Smuggler's Notch and the Sterling Range to the east. To the geologist Mount Mansfield tells a
wonderful
tale of how the vast glacial flood of eons past came dashing upon it
from the
north, engulfing its topmost crags, even grinding them away in part.
Not only
do the summit ledges, rounded by the overriding ice, still bear the
grooves and
scratches scoured into them by the grit that the glacier dragged
along, but
here and there are still perched fragments of the selfsame grit, huge
bits
plucked from the mountain's own flanks, some, indeed, brought from
afar, and
left stranded there by the melting mantle. In the woods beside the
mountain
carriage road, not far below the hotel (elevation 3250), lies a
five-foot
boulder of labradorite that commands the attention of every
geologically
inclined visitor. This bit of Vermont landscape was probably born
somewhere
to the northward of Montreal, more than one hundred miles away, since
it is
there that the nearest parent ledges of that form of rock are native.
Its
deportation from Canada across the border to the Green Mountain State
was
decreed and carried out by the irresistible forces of the arctic
invader of
old. It is small wonder that the University of
Vermont men
take so great an interest in the mountains of the State, and in their
development
as an attraction for tourists, since the title to this, the highest
summit, is
in large part vested in their institution. And the State itself is
showing a
jealous regard for the forests of its greatest mountain, and has
already
acquired large tracts, exceeding in all five thousand acres, reaching
from the
summit far down the slopes on the east and south, a beginning for a
reservation
that it is to be hoped will eventually include the mountain as a whole.
Six and a quarter miles of pleasant forest
jogging
lies between the Nose, the central and second highest summit on the
Mansfield
ridge, and Lake Mansfield, at the eastern entrance to Nebraska Notch,
where
the most genuine and generous hospitality is extended to wanderers over
the
Long Trail by the members of the Trout Club. It has already been intimated that the
eleven and a
quarter miles across Bolton Mountain, from Lake Mansfield to the
northern
flanks of Camel's Hump in the Winooski valley, may be treated
censoriously,
or, in other words, deleted, until the summit view, now shut in by the
forest,
is opened up by vista-cutting, or by the erection of a tripod tower.
With its
dashing trout-brook it has its attractions none the less, and the trail
is
clearly marked and easily followed. The twenty miles of pretty country
road
that lie between the Trout Club and the ford at Bolton village, where
begins
the ascent of Camel's Hump, are made agreeably possible to-day, even
after a
leisurely breakfast, by virtue of the ever-present "flivver "and its
modest rate of hire. By the Long Trail proper to the summit of
Camel's
Hump it is four and a half miles of steady uphill through the woods,
and across
a bit of brush-grown burn, from the Bolton ford. As an alternative
there is the
slightly longer drive from the Trout Club through Waterbury, to cross
the
Winooski River by the only bridge in several miles, to approach the
mountain
from the North Duxbury side by the Callahan Trail. By this route three
miles of
relatively easy upgrade makes the summit, with its little group of
three
galvanized-iron huts, located in a cozy glade under the northern
shoulder of
the peak, where for seventeen years stood the Green Mountain House,
until fire
removed it in 1877. Here, too, are bed and board of the usual
unpretending
mountain sort, set out by the hospitality of the Camel's Hump Club of
Waterbury. Whoever it was who fastened upon this
mountain the
name of "Camel's Hump" would be without honor with many in Vermont
to-day.
Descriptive it may be as the mountain's peaked top is seen from some
points of
view, but no one who has gazed that way from Burlington on the west, or
looked
up at its summit from the Duxbury valley at its eastern foot, could
fail to
feel the greater truthfulness of the name that tradition says was
bestowed upon
it in the early years of the seventeenth century by the chaplain of
Champlain's
expedition — "Le Lion
Couchant." As "Le Lion Couchant" it was known in 1851
to Frederika Bremer, a Swedish novelist, who thus named it in her
"Impressions
of America," terming it "a magnificent giant form." The
appropriateness of the original name must likewise have impressed
William Dean
Howells at the time of his writing the story of "The Landlord of the
Lion's
Head." He there described the mountain's outline as having "the form
of a sleeping lion, . . . the mighty head resting, with the tossed
mane, upon
the vast paws stretched before it." And so if Vermonters have their way
the mountain's strength and majesty, the memory of the French
discoverers, and
the eternal fitness of things, will all be given recognition in a
rechristening of "The Couching Lion." It will be well to bear this in
mind when following the Long Trail where the arrow-signs that point the
way
frequently bear the legend of so many miles to Couching Lion. Although four hundred feet lower than
Mount
Mansfield, this mountain, standing out by itself with naked cone,
commands a
view that is more extended than that from its big sister to the north.
Its
summit is distinctly a place where one would loiter indefinitely in
fair
weather, and we were favored by a lifting of the haze for as fair a
summer
afternoon's view as one could desire, a view that ranged north to the
Quebec
border, east to Camel's Rump in Maine, and to the White Mountains,
south along
the Green Mountain Ranges, with their wide, cultivated troughs
between, and
west over Lake Champlain to the tumbling masses of the Adirondacks: an
afternoon of sunshine and floating cloud-forms, succeeded by a
spectacular
sunset, and the golden splendors of a full moon. FIVE DAYS ON VERMONT'S HIGH SPOTS First Day
MILES
HRS. MIN. Johnson Station (H. & M. R.R.) to
Whiteface summit
5.50
3 30 To Morse Mountain and Madonna summit (shelter campen route)
9.75
6 30 To Sterling Pond.
11.75 7 30 To Smuggler's Notch (Barnes'
Camp)
15.00 10 00 Second Day
MILES
HRS. MIN Barnes' Camp to Mansfield Nose . via Running Water Trail . . .
2.33
2 00 To the Chin, main summit, and return to hotel at Nose
5.33
5
00 Third Day
Nose to Lake Mansfield Trout
Club
6.25
5
00 Fourth Day
Lake Mansfield to Bolton Mountain summit.
3.50
4
00 To Bolton village
11.25 9 00 Fifth Day
Bolton to Couching Lion summit 4.50
5
00 To Callahan Farm at North
Duxbury base
7.50
7
00 To Central Vermont Railroad at North Duxbury via highway
11.10 8
30 * The mileage and elapsed time are
cumulative for
each day, distance and time being figured from point last named in
previous
line. The times here given are sufficient for leisurely walking. The
trail from
Johnson to Smuggler's Notch is unsurveyed and distances given are
therefore
approximate. MAP: Trail survey from Smuggler's Notch to
Couching
Lion, by Herbert Wheaton Congdon, and published by Green Mountain Club,
Burlington, Vt. |