the mountain had swept around the base of the summit cone and hung
trailing streamers down into Tuckerman's Ravine did the masses that
filled it with white opacity to the top of the snow arch scale the head
wall. Then they came grandly on and met and mingled with their kind
till Boott's Spur disappeared and all the long ranges of mountains to
southward were wiped out by an atmosphere that, with the sun lighting
it, was like the nebulous luminosity out of which the world was
originally made. Behind me they climbed the central cone, but slowly,
almost, as I did. My trouble was the Jacob's ladder of astoundingly
piled rocks of which the way is made. Theirs was a little cool wind
that came down from the very summit and which steadily checked them,
though they boiled and danced with bewildering turbulence against it.
They wiped out the solid mountain behind me as I went till the cone and
I seemed to be floating on a quivering cloud through the extreme limits
of space.
Climbing this Tuckerman's Ravine path one gets no hint of the buildings
on the summit. With the clouds below me and the rocks above I was
isolated in space on a cone of jagged rock whose base was continually
removed from beneath me as I climbed. It seemed as if, when I did
reach that high pinnacle, the last rock might fade from beneath my
feet and leave me floating in the white void that came so majestically
on behind me. We reached the top together, but the crisis was not so
lonely as I had imagined. Instead, I found myself walled in by opaque
mists indeed, but still with much solid rock beneath my feet and a
friendly little village, a railroad track and station, a stage office
and stables, and an inn at hand, all with familiar human greetings
for the weary traveller. You may come to the summit by many paths, by
train, carriage or motor, but no trail has more of beauty, or indeed
more of weirdness if the fluff of the giant's blanket follows you to
the summit, than the three miles and a half of steady climbing by way
of Tuckerman's Ravine.
VIII
ON MOUNT WASHINGTON
_Sunny Days and Clear Nights on the Highest Summit_
The dweller on the top of Mount Washington may have all kinds of
weather in the twenty-four hours of a July day, or he may have a
tremendous amount, all of one kind, extending through many days. It all
depends on what winds Father Æolus keeps chained, perhaps in the deep
caverns of the Great Gulf, or which ones he lets loose to rattle the
chains of the Tip Top House. My four days there were such as the fates
in kindly mood sometimes deal out to fortunate mortals. The land below
was in a swoon of awful heat. People died like flies in cities not far
to the southward. The summit had a temperature of June, and the wind
that drifted in from Canada made the nights cool enough for blankets;
all but one. The night before the Fourth we perspired, even in this
wind of Hudson Bay, and the habitués of the hilltop were properly
indignant. They had snowballed there for a brief hour on the July
Fourth of the year before and these sudden changes were disquieting.
[Illustration: "It all depends on what winds Father Æolus keeps
chained, perhaps in the deep caverns of the Great Gulf, or which ones
he lets loose to rattle the chains of the Tip Top House"]
Of these four gems of days the first was a pearl, two were amethystine,
and the last was of lapis lazuli. The morning of the pearl broke after
light rains in the valley below, the air so clear that the city of
Portland lifted its spires on the eastern horizon just before sunrise
and the blue water of Casco Bay flashed beyond it. Yet the nearer
valleys were shrouded in the white mists that were mother-of-pearl,
a matrix that gradually rose and blotted out the green and gray of
granite hilltops below till the summit was a great ship, rock-laden,
ploughing through a white tumultuous sea whose billows were fluffy
clouds like those on which Jupiter of old sat and dispensed judgment on
mankind. I know of nothing so much like this sea of white cloud surface
seen from above as is the sea of Arctic ice under a summer sun, its
white, sun-softened expanse crushed into flocculent pressure ridges
of frozen tumult stretching as far as the eye can reach. Yet this is
different in its strange beauty, for the Arctic ice changes its form
only slowly, while this fleecy sea, seemingly so stable to the fleeting
glance, changes shape before the next look can be given. No breath of
wind may fan your brow on the summit, but the clouds below you tread
a stately minuet, advancing, retreating, meeting and dividing, now a
white Arctic sea, again a swiftly dignified dance by ghostly castles in
Spain.
Often the near mists close in upon the summit and make all opaque, and
the gray, shadowy hand of the cloud lies against your cheek and leaves
a smear of cool moisture when it is withdrawn. On that morning when
the summit and the day were bosomed together in a white pearl I saw
the wayward moods of an imperceptible wind ordering this dance of the
clouds. It passed down from the peak by the path that leads over the
range to Crawford Notch, waving one line of mists eastward from the
ridge until Boott's Spur and Tuckerman's Ravine stood clearly revealed,
while on the west an obedient white wall stood, wavering indeed, but
holding its ground from the margin of the path high into the sky toward
the zenith. For nearly half an hour any alpinist climbing over the head
wall of Tuckerman's in sunshine would have seen his way clearly to this
Crawford path, and, going westward, have stepped into the white mystery
of the mists on the farther verge.
* * * * *
Again the imperceptible winds beckoned and the clouds whirled up from
Pinkham Notch and blotted out the spur and the ravine, pirouetting up
to meet their partners while the latter retreated, fluttering lace
skirts behind, the high-walled chasm of clear space between them
passing over the ridge and swinging north until met by an eruption of
white dancers out of the Great Gulf and across the railroad track. Then
all whirled together up the rough rock tangle of the central cone and
blotted out the world in a pearly opacity.
The clouds that morning were born in the lowlands and ascended to the
summit from all sides, out of Huntington and Tuckerman Ravines, out
of Oakes Gulf and Great Gulf and up from Fabyan's by way of the Base
Station and the Mount Washington Railroad, enfolding the summit only
after they had shown the marvels of their upper levels all about the
foundations of the central cone. Then, after the white opalescence of
the conquest of the peak the whirling dervishes above, for an hour
or two, now occluded, again revealed, what was below. For half an
hour they danced along the northern peaks, now hiding, now disclosing
portions of them, but always during that time showing the peak of
Adams, a clearly defined purple-black pyramid, framed in their fleece.
After that for a long time they lifted bodily for ten-minute spaces,
revealing another body of mists below, their upper surface far enough
down so that the castellated ridge of Boott's Spur, Mount Monroe, Mount
Clay and Nelson Crag stood out above them.
Here were clouds above clouds, the upper levels whirling in wild
dances, fluttering together and again parting to let the sun in on
the summit and on the levels below whence rose fleecy cloud rocks
of white, tinged often with the rose of sunlight, mountain ranges of
semi-opaque mists that changed without seeming to move and showed
oftentimes a curious semblance in white vapor to the land formation as
it is revealed below on a clear day. Out of these lower clouds came
sometimes sudden jets of vapor, as if the winds below found fumaroles
whence they sent quick geysers of mists, vanishing fountains of a magic
garden of the gods. Old Merlin, long banished from Arthur's Court in
the high Welsh hills, may well have found a retreat in this new world
Cærleon, nor did ever knight of the Round Table see more potent display
of his powers of illusion and evasion than were here shown for any man
who had climbed the high peak on that day of pearl cloud magic.
* * * * *
Afterward came two days of fervent sun on clear peaks that stand
all about the horizon from Washington summit, half islanded in an
amethystine heat haze, as beautiful, seen from the wind-swept pinnacle,
as if old Merlin after a day of tricks with pearls had ground all the
gems of his magic storehouse to blue dust that filled the valleys of
all the mountain world. On those days few men climbed the peak, but
all the butterflies of the meadows and valleys far below danced up and
held revels in the scent of the alpine plants, then in the full joy
of their July blooming. The more distant valleys were deeply hazed
in this amethystine blue, but the nearer peaks and plateaus stood so
clear above them that it seemed as if one might leap to the lakes of
the clouds or step across the great gulf to Jefferson in one giant's
stride. I have heard a man on the rim of the Grand Cañon in Arizona
declaring that he could throw a stone across its thirteen miles. So
on those days in the high air miles seemed but yards, and only in the
actual test of travel did one realize how far the feet fall behind the
eye in the passage of distances.
[Illustration: "The more distant valleys were deeply hazed in this
amethystine blue, but the nearer peaks and plateaus stood so clear
above them that it seemed as if one might leap to the Lakes of the
Clouds or step across the Great Gulf to Jefferson in one Giant's
stride."]
At nightfall one realized how that heat haze not only possessed the
valleys but the air high above them, for the sun, descending, grew red
and dim and finally was swallowed up in the mists of his own creating
long before he had reached the actual horizon's rim. Under his passing
one lake after another to westward flashed his mirrored light back in
a dazzling gleam of silver, then faded again to become a part of the
blue dust of the distance. By their flashes they could be counted,
and it was as if each signalled good night to the summit as the day
went on. Eastward the purple shadow of the apex moved out across the
Alpine garden, joined that of the head wall of Huntington Ravine, and,
flanked by those of the Lion's Head and Nelson Crag, went on toward the
horizon. Clearly defined on the light-blue haze where the sun's rays
still touched, this deep pyramid of color moved majestically out of
the Notch and up the slope of Wildcat Mountain, leapt Carter Notch and
from the high dome of the farther summit put the Wild River valley in
shadow as it went on, up Baldface and on again across the nearer Maine
ranges, till it set its blunt point on the heat-haze clouds along the
far eastern horizon. Nothing could be more expressive of the majesty
of the mountain than to thus see its great shadow move over scores of
miles of earth and on and up into the very heavens.
* * * * *
It was as if God withdrew the mountain for the night into the sky,
leaving the watcher on that great ledge-laden ship which is the very
summit, plunging on over dark billows with the winds of space singing
wild songs in the rigging. Beneath is the blue-black sea of tumultuous
mountain waves that ride out from beneath the prow and on into the
weltering spindrift haze of distance where sea and sky are one. In
the full night the winds increase and find a harp-string or a throat
in every projection of the pinnacle ledges whence to voice their lone
chanteys of illimitable space. It is the same world-old song that finds
responsive echoes in man's very being but for which he can never find
words, the chantey of the night winds that every sailor has heard from
the fore-top as the ship plunges on in the darkness when only the dim
stars mark the compass points and the very ship itself is merged far
below in the murk of chaos returned. What the night may be during a
storm on this main-top of the great mountain ship only those who have
there endured it may tell; my nights there were like the days, fairy
gifts out of a Pandora's box that often holds far other things beneath
its lid.
[Illustration: "Dawn on the mornings of those days was born out of the
sky above the summit, as if the fading stars left some of their shine
behind them"]
Dawn on the mornings of those days was born out of the sky about the
summit as if the fading stars left some of their shine behind them, a
soft, unworldly light that touched the pinnacles first and anon lighted
the mountain waves that slid out from under the prow of the ship and
rode on into the flushing east. As the heat haze at night had absorbed
the red sun in the west, so now it let it gently grow into being again
from the east. In its crescent light he who watched to westward could
see the mountain come down again out of the sky into which it had been
withdrawn. Out of a broad, indistinct shadow that overlaid the world it
grew an outline that descended and increased in definiteness till the
apex was in a moment plainly marked on the massed vapors that obscured
the horizon line. Down these it marched grandly, touching indistinct
ranges far to westward, more clearly defined on the Cherry Mountains
and the southerly ridges of the Dartmouth range, and becoming the very
mountain itself as its point touched the valley whence flows Jefferson
Brook and the slender thread of the railway climbs daringly toward the
summit.
Below in a thousand sheltered valleys the hermit thrushes sang
greetings to the day. Far up a thousand slopes the white-throated
sparrows joined with their thin, sweet whistle, and higher yet the
juncos warbled cheerily, but no voice of bird reaches the high summit.
The only song there is that of the wind chanting still the thrumming
runes of ancient times, sung first when rocks emerged out of chaos and
touched with rough fingers the harp strings of the air. To such music
the light of day descends from above, and the shadows of night withdraw
and hide in the caves and under the black growth in the bottoms of
ravines and gulfs. Rarely does one notice this music in the full day.
Then the rough cone even is a part of man's world, built on a sure
foundation of the familiar, friendly earth. It is only the darkness
of night that whirls it off into the void of space and sets the eerie
runes in vibration. Few nights of the year are so calm there that you
do not hear them, and even in their gentlest moods they come from
the voices of winds lost in the void, little winds, perhaps, rushing
shiveringly along to find their way home and whistling sorrowfully to
themselves to keep their courage up.
* * * * *
Man comes to the summit at all hours and by many paths. Often in
that darkest time which precedes the dawn one may see firefly lights
approaching from the northeast, bobbing along in curious zigzags. These
will-o'-the-wisps are pedestrians, climbing by the carriage road to
greet the first dawn on the summit and watch the sun rise, carrying
lanterns meanwhile lest they lose the broad, well-kept road and fall
from the Cape Horn bend into the solemn black silence of the Great
Gulf. The voices of these are an alarm clock to such as sleep on the
summit, calling them out betimes to view the wonders they seek. By day
men and women appear on foot from the most unexpected places. The
Crawford and Gulf Side trails, Tuckerman's and the carriage road bring
them up by accepted paths, but you may see them also clambering over
the head wall of Huntington's or the Gulf, precipitous spots that the
novice would think unsurmountable.
These are the "trampers," as the habitués of the mountain summit call
them. But the carriage road brings many who ride luxuriously up for
four hours behind two, four or six horses, or flash up in less than an
hour to the honk of automobile horns and the steady chug of gasolene
engines. The old-time picturesque burros that patiently bore their
riders up the nine miles of the Crawford trail have gone, probably
never to return, and the horseback parties once so common are now
rare. But by far the greater numbers climb the mountain by steam. From
the northerly slope of Monroe, over beyond the Lakes of the Clouds, I
watched the trains come, clanking caterpillars that inch-worm along the
trestles of the cogged railroad, clinking like beetles and sputtering
smoke and steam as only goblin caterpillars might, finally becoming
motionless chrysalids on the very summit. From these burst forth
butterfly crowds that put to shame with their raiment the gauzy-winged
beauties that flutter up the ravines to enjoy the sweets of the Alpine
Garden. Then for a brief two hours on any bright day the bleak summit
becomes a picnic ground, bright with gay crowds that flutter from one
rock pinnacle to another and swirl into the ancient Tip Top house
to buy souvenirs and dinner, restless as are any lepidoptera and as
little mindful of the sanctity of this highest altar of the Appalachian
gods. Soon these have reassembled once more in their chrysalids that
presently retrovert to the caterpillar stage and crawl clanking and
hissing down the mountain, inching along the trestles and vanishing
anon into the very granite whence you hear them clanking and sputtering
on. Amid all the weird play of nature in lonely places the summit has
no stranger spectacle than this.
The day of lapis lazuli began with a break in the intense heat, a day
on which cumulus clouds rolled up thousands of feet above the summit in
the thin air and cast their shadows before them, to race across the
soft amethyst of the miles below and deepen it with their rich blue out
of which golden sun-glints flashed still, racing shifting breaks in the
cloud masses above. The wind increased in velocity toward mid-afternoon
and cumulus massed in nimbus on the far horizon to the northwest out
of which the flick of red swords of lightning and the battle roar of
thunder sounded nearer and nearer. Mightily the black majesty of the
storm moved up to us, wiping out earth and sky in its progress, the
rolling edges of its topmost clouds still golden with the color of the
sun that sank behind them. Here was a glory such as day nor night,
sunrise nor sunset, had been able to show me.
The pagan gods of the days long gone seemed to come forth out of the
summits far to the northwest and do battle, but half-concealed by their
clouds. Swords flashed high and javelins flew and the clash of shields
and the rumble of chariot wheels came to the ear in ever increasing
volume as the tide of battle swept on and over the summit. A moment
and we should see the very cohorts of Mars himself in all their
shining fury, but father Æolus let loose all the winds at once from his
caverns, Jupiter Pluvius opened wide the conduits of the clouds and the
world, even the very summit thereof, was drowned in the gray tumult of
the rain.
IX
MOUNT WASHINGTON BUTTERFLIES
_Filmy Beauties to be Found in Fair Weather on the Very Summit_
The height of the butterfly season comes to the rich meadows about
the base of Mount Washington in mid-July. The white clover sends its
fragrance from the roadside and the red clover from the deep grass
for them, and all the meadow and woodland flowers of midsummer rush
into bloom for their enjoyment, while those of an earlier season seem
to linger and strive not to be outdone. The cool winds from the high
summits of the Presidential Range help them in this, and even in the
summer drought the snow-water from the cliffs and the night fogs of the
ravines keep them moist and fresh. No wonder that butterflies swarm in
these meadows and even climb toward the summits along the flowery paths
laid out for them up the beds of dwindling mountain torrents and under
the cool shadows of forests impenetrable to the sun. Butterflies come
to know woodland paths as well as man does and delight to follow them.
[Illustration: Butterfly-time on Mount Washington, the summit seen over
the larger of the Lakes of the Clouds]
Of a July day the butterflies and I journeyed together up the
flower-margined carriage road that leads to the summit of Mount
Washington. They may have been surprised at the pervasiveness of my
presence. I am sure I was at theirs, which lasted as long as the
marginal beds of wild flowers did.
To climb this smooth road leisurely, on foot, is always to marvel at
the engineering skill which found so steadily easy a grade up such an
acclivity and so cunningly constructed it that it has been possible to
keep it in good condition all these years--it was finished in 1869--in
spite of summer cloudbursts and the gruelling torrents of melting
snow in early spring. One is well past the first mile post before he
realizes that he is going up much of a hill. The rise is that of an
easy country road and might be anywhere in the northern half of New
England from all outside appearances.
The striped moosewood and the mountain moosewood growing by the
roadside under white and yellow birch and rock maple suggest the
latitude. The white admiral butterflies emphasize the suggestion.
Rarely have I found these plants or this insect south of the northern
boundary of Massachusetts. The white admirals flip their blue-black
wings with the broad white epaulettes up and down the road in numbers.
Butterflies of the shady spots, they find this highway where the
trees arch in and often meet above peculiarly to their taste. Yet the
meadow-loving fritillaries outnumber the admirals ten to one. Not
even among the richly scented clover of the flats below, not even in
the full roadside sun on the milkweed blooms which all butterflies
so love, are they so plentiful. I suspect them of having a strain of
adventurous blood in their veins, such as gets into us all when among
the mountains and sets us to climbing them, and later observations bear
out the suspicion. It was a day to lure butterflies to climb heights,
still, steeped in fervid sun heat, and redolent of the perfect bloom of
a hundred varieties of flowering plants.
At first I thought these all specimens of the great spangled
fritillary, Argynnis cybele, but they gave me such friendly
opportunities for close examination that I soon knew better. The
greater number of these mountain climbing butterflies were a rather
smaller variety with a distinct black border along the wings, Argynnis
atlantis, the mountain fritillary. They swarmed along the narrow shady
road as plentiful as the blossoms of field daisies and blue brunella.
With playful necromancy they made the daisies change kaleidoscopically
from gold and white to gold and black, or they folded their wings and
set the flower stalks scintillant with silver moon spangles. So with
the blue brunella blooms. They flashed from close spikes of modest blue
flecks to great four-petalled flowers of gold and silver and black, a
blossom that would make the fortune of any gardener that could grow
it, and presto! the miracle of bloom rose lightly into the air on
fluttering wings and the stalk held only the shy blue of the brunella
after all. Such is the magic of the first mile of the ascent, which
might be any easy rise under the deciduous shade of most any little
New Hampshire hill, so far as appearances go.
During the second mile spruces slip casually into the roadside. They
do it so unassumingly that you hardly know when, they and the firs.
But the swarms of butterflies go on up the grade and through the
dense foliage you still glimpse no mountain tops. With them shines
occasionally the pale yellow of Colias philodice, and little orange
skippers skip madly from bloom to bloom of the wayside flowers that
still fill the margins from woods to wheel tracks. Clearwing moths
buzz and poise like miniature humming birds, and with them in the
deeper shadow flits a small white moth so delicately transparent and so
ethereally pure in color that when he lights on a leaf the green of it
shines through his wings.