North of the Sandwich Mountains, inclosed by a circle of sombre peaks,
there once lay a beautiful lake. Centuries ago its outflowing stream,
now called Swift River, cut so deeply between the spurs of Chocorua and
Bear mountains that the greater part of the lake drained away into the
Saco at Conway, leaving its level bed a fair and rich-soiled intervale.
By the road upon which the lake went out man in time came in, and
founded in the bosom of the spruce-grown mountains a small but
comparatively prosperous settlement. Having seen this hidden valley in
summer, and taken account of its rare beauty and its remoteness from the
wearisome machinery of the world, I yearned to know its winter charms,
feeling sure that they would surpass those of summer as the fairness of
snow surpasses the fairness of grass. Accordingly, in the latter part of
December, 1891, I went by rail with a friend to Chatauque Corner, and
thence by sleigh up the weird pass between Chocorua on the south and
Moat and Bear mountains on the north, gaining at nightfall a warm haven
in one of the snug farmhouses in the middle of the intervale.
The township of Albany knows no priest or physician, squire or
shopkeeper, and in its coat of arms, if it had one, the plow and rifle,
axe and circular saw, would be quartered with bear and porcupine, owl
and grouse. From the head of the intervale the people are forced to
travel nearly thirty miles to reach and bring home their mail and
groceries. In spite of these drawbacks, the permanent residents are
intelligent, thrifty, well-housed, and well informed of the world’s
doings. Though their only road to the outside is long and rough, they
let no moss gather on it in summer, and no snowdrifts blockade it in
winter.
Setting out for this far valley in midwinter, I felt something of the
explorer’s thrill as he turns towards the unknown, and leaves home and
comforts behind. The distant and the difficult of attainment are always
seen by the mind through a golden haze, and although no fair Lorna drew
me to her rescue, and no lawless Doones barred my way through the grim
passes which led to the valley, romance and the spice of danger seemed
mingled with my enterprise. As the journey progressed, and one stage of
it after another slipped past, unreal gave way to real, and commonplace
supplanted marvelous. Even when night fell, as we entered the valley,
the light which gleamed afar through the spruces told of hospitality as
truly as the sleigh’s ample furs spoke of comfort, and the keen wind of
health.
We reached the valley on the evening of Saturday, December 19, and
enjoyed every moment of our stay, which was prolonged until Saturday,
the 26th. From my journal, written on the evening of each day, I take
the following account of our wanderings.
We left Chatauque Corner (Conway) at three o’clock, well packed in the
fur robes of a comfortable two-seated sleigh and drawn by a skinny
graduate of a race-course. It was an ideal winter afternoon, blessing an
ideal Northern landscape. There were the broad Saco intervales flat with
snow, the pale blue sky with a fringe of cloud-banks, and between
intervale and sky, mountains of marble and ramparts of dark evergreens.
Straight up the Saco valley the immense mass of Mount Washington rose
against the sky. It was wholly covered by snow. On its left, Moat, like
a breaking wave of the sea, was close at hand. On its right, Carter
Notch, with walls of dull purplish-black spruce, reached to where
stately Mount Pequawket reared its dark cone on high. The Saco splashed
in its rocky bed. Every boulder was glazed with white ice, and from the
two banks of the stream, borders of ice reached towards each other, half
concealing the greenish waters which lapped their edges.
[Illustration: “MOAT, LIKE A BREAKING WAVE”]
The sleighing was excellent. Not more than eight inches of snow had
fallen during the week, and it was the first enduring fall of the
season. It had been followed by a dash of rain and then a sudden freeze.
After going a mile on the North Conway road, we turned to the left into
a road leading westward towards the narrow pass between Chocorua and
Moat. The immense crags of Moat frowned upon us. Then we plunged into a
pine forest and felt the first chill of night. As we sped through the
shadow, we passed the skinned carcass of an ox hung by its fore-legs to
the limb of a pine. A strange slaughtering-place, and one to tempt
sniffing foxes when night falls. A mile farther on, the skull of a bear
grinned on the tip of a pole in the brush fence by the roadside.
Music sounded in our ears, and far below the narrow road, which was
grooved in the mountain-side, we saw Swift River plunging from ledge to
pool on its way to the Saco. The Saco had seemed wild when we saw it in
Conway intervale, but this stream’s madness left it placid by
comparison. Two steep slopes, glare with crusted snow, led down to the
narrow channel. At their foot boulders of every shape and size fought
the progress of the water. The stream dashed itself against them,
hurling spray into the air; the spray fell upon the snow and froze, fell
upon the boulders and froze, or drained back into the stream, freezing
in icicles of marvelous forms. The water, colored doubtless by the
mosses and weeds below its surface, was green,—a cold, pale green,—with
something of the cruelty of a winter ocean in its tones. Now and then we
met and passed sleds heavily laden with lumber or logs. One load of
birch logs was on fire at the hinder end, and the driver was warming his
hands at the blaze. A few poor farms lined the road at points where
small patches of tillable land were to be found between the rocky
fingers of Moat. As we passed one of these farms a flock of two dozen or
more snow-buntings rose from a field full of tall weed-stalks and
whirled over us singing. Their sweet notes fell on us as holy water
falls on a kneeling congregation.
The road grew steeper, and then it crossed the river, passing through a
huge covered bridge, and soon we found ourselves inside of the portals
of Chocorua and Moat, with the high ridge of Bear Mountain, covered with
black spruces, barring our westward way. The wall of sullen forest
seemed without a cleft, yet the raging river which met us told of a way
somewhere, to be found by retracing its channel.
In the midst of this gloomy hollow in the hills we found a slab village.
A dozen or fifteen houses stood here, but no smoke curled from their
chimneys. Last September every house was occupied; now the foxes roam
through the deserted settlement unmolested. The sawmill which had
created the village had been burned and the whole population had
vanished almost as swiftly as the smoke of the ruins. Not so the hideous
scars left by the lumberman’s axe. They will remain for many a day.
By a series of sharp ascents we gained and passed through the rift in
the mountain wall made centuries ago by the imprisoned waters. In this
rift at the eastern foot of Bear Mountain, only a few steps from the
roadside, are the picturesque falls of Swift River. The treacherous ice
and the gathering darkness forbade our going to the giddy margin of the
fall, and we dashed on into the hidden valley, the narrow,
mountain-girdled intervale of which we were in search. As we left the
forest fringes of Bear Mountain behind us and emerged in the plain, a
gorgeous winter sunset gave us welcome. Over the blue of the upper sky,
in which Jupiter alone sparkled faintly, were scattered countless flakes
of rosy cloud. Below them a broad black band of cloud cut the sky at the
level of several mountain peaks, and below this sinister bar, showing
only in the gaps between the mountains, was a space of greenish silver,
into which thousands of spruces reared their slender spires.
Taking fresh courage, our horse carried us over the fifteenth mile at
racing speed. The road was level. On the right the flat, white intervale
shone in the pale light as in distant ages the face of the great
mountain lake shone in silent winter nights. Westward, across the end of
the intervale, were Tripyramid, Kancamagus, and Osceola mountains;
northward, Green’s Cliffs, Carrigain, Lowell, Owl’s Head, and Tremont
Mountain stood shoulder to shoulder in double rank. Behind us, dark Bear
Mountain concealed Moat, while spurs of Chocorua reached down to the
road. On the left was Paugus, crouching at the foot of Passaconaway,
which dominated over the valley with gloomy majesty. A bright light
gleamed through the spruces, the Carrigain House lay there between black
forest and pale snow, Mayhew’s lantern swung to and fro, and his deep
voice welcomed us to his cheerful home in the heart of the wintry
wilderness.
Those who live in the city have an idea that it is hard to keep warm in
these northern farm-houses, with their single windows, thin walls, and
wood fires. They are wrong. There is a degree of heat attainable in a
small room, armed with an air-tight stove, which burns birch sticks or
slabs almost as fast as they can be fed to it, that is able to hold its
own against the equator at midsummer. It takes courage, on a cold
morning before sunrise, to leave a warm bed to start a fire in one of
these stoves; but when the fire is fully aroused, cold is put out of the
question, or at least out of doors.
After a hot supper we put on our coats and furs and went out into the
night. I had the same feeling of reverence and quiet that I have in
going into a dimly-lighted cathedral. The stars flickered on high, the
snow gleamed below, on every side mountain peaks guarded the narrow
valley. In the spruce woods, which reach from the road back to Paugus,
the darkness was intense. We listened. At first there seemed to be no
sound to hear. Then the whisper of Swift River came out of the north,
and the bark of a dog far up the valley told of a fox prowling too near
the farmyard. Suddenly, from a bank of silver light back of Carrigain,
two long tongues of pallid fire shot upward into the sky and trembled
there, only to disappear as abruptly as they came. Although the dim
auroral glow stayed in the north for some time, I saw no more radiating
light.
It was but little after eight o’clock when we sought sleep and found it
quickly between feathers below and mighty piles of blankets and
comforters above.
Untroubled moonlight flooded Swift River intervale all night, and there
was still more of moonlight than of daylight when our host came into our
room in the morning to light our fire. The winter working-costume of our
host deserves mention. His brown cardigan jacket was not remarkable, but
his legs were marvelously encased. They began at the body with ample
woolen trousers, half way between the hip and knee gave way to
tightly-fitting scarlet wrappings which reached to low rubbers, covering
the feet. Nimble of foot, and of wiry frame, the wearer of these
remarkably unpuritanical nether garments was a most enlivening figure in
the snow.
Encouraged by our fire, we arose with the sun. The mountains in the
north were bathed in rosy light. Dark as were their forests, each of
these mountains presented snow-covered ledges, or avalanche scars white
with snow. Upon these white surfaces the sunlight fell with that soft
blush which makes a winter sunrise so charmingly full of promise. We
hastened out of doors as soon as dressed, and were at once greeted by
joyous voices. A red squirrel in the dark spruces was whirling his
watchman’s rattle; far away in the forest a woodpecker was drumming on a
resonant tree-trunk; but near at hand, only across one snow-covered
field, a chorus of bird voices quivered in the still, cold air. The air
was cold, that was true. Zero was the point the mercury held to, and as
we took long breaths of the pure air we spouted forth columns of white
steam through our ice-hung beards. Trotting up the road, we sought the
birds. We found them at the next farmhouse, perched by dozens on
plum-trees, maple saplings by the road, and on the tips of a row of
spruces opposite the farmyard. Some were in the road, others in the
dooryard on the soiled snow where oxen had stood. In all, over a hundred
were present. As we drew near, they rose and flew in waving circles over
us, every bird singing until the whole air seemed tingling with sound.
Then they came down in undulating lines, curves, angles, and plunges,
which turned aside into a second flight in the sunlight. As they settled
in groups in the various trees, I swept my glass over one cluster after
another. Crossbills were the most numerous species, with goldfinches a
close second, and pine finches third. The crossbills were in all stages
and conditions of plumage, from rich red males blazing like dull coals
plucked from the fire, to dingy brown. No white-winged crossbills seemed
to be among them. Three months before, on a cold dewy morning in
September, I stood on this spot and saw a flock of thirty crossbills in
these same trees. Then a number of them were feeding in the edge of the
pasture at a place where cattle had been salted in a shallow trough. I
saw the birds tearing off fibres from the wood of the trough, so eager
were they to get the salt which the wood had absorbed. This morning the
salt trough was covered with snow, save one edge which protruded; but
all around it the crossbills had trodden the snow into a path, showing
that they were still salt-hungry. Acting upon this hint, I sprinkled the
ground with grain and rock salt; but although birds were in all the
trees, they paid no heed to my offerings.
After watching the crossbills for nearly an hour we walked westward. The
birds had been more restless than we. Few of them remained still more
than two or three minutes at a time. With sharp calls the crossbills
would dash off, followed by the finches, and together, or in scattered
detachments, they would wheel from one quarter of the heavens to
another, perhaps returning in a moment to the same perch, perhaps
vanishing in distance, not to reappear for many minutes. All the time
that they were on the wing the air was full of their fragments of music.
Our way led for a mile through the level fields of the intervale. Five
or six farmhouses or wood-cutters’ huts faced the straight road. At
almost every house a few birds were seen, probably parts of the main
flock. We also caught a glimpse of a large flock of snow-buntings flying
helter-skelter over a field where yellow grasses were waving above the
snow. At length our road came to an end at the banks of Swift River near
the upper end of the intervale. The river was shallow, and so was a
broad brook flowing into it at this point. The latter we found no great
difficulty in crossing dry-shod, by going from one pile of stones and
ice to another. Beyond the stream we entered a bit of primeval forest,
only partly destroyed by lumbermen of an earlier generation, who seem to
have been less grasping than their successors. In these woods we heard
bird voices, and recognized the “_quank, quank_” of the red-bellied
nuthatch, and the “_chick-a-dee-dee-dee_” of the titmouse. To call them
nearer I hooted like an owl, and soon after, sharp alarm whistles almost
exactly like those of a robin came from some unknown birds in a bunch of
firs at a distance. Upon hooting again, I was pleasantly surprised to
get a reply from a barred owl. A moment or so later we heard blue jays
scolding him not far away.
After strolling through these woods and along the edge of Sabba Day
Brook for an hour we turned towards home, treading in our previous
footprints and thus avoiding crashing through the brittle crust of the
snow. On reaching the spot where the owl had hooted, I used my metallic
bird whistles and drew a crowd of chickadees, kinglets, nuthatches, and
blue jays. Then I hooted, the jays scolded noisily, and soon the owl
replied. He came nearer by degrees, I hooting occasionally, he
frequently. Finally he alighted in a tree just over us, but saw us at
once and flew away. I continued hooting and he replied again, and came
back within sight. Whenever he moved, the jays pursued him scolding, and
they were still watching him when we resumed our march towards home.
CLIMBING BEAR MOUNTAIN IN THE
SNOW.
_Monday, December 21._ The moon ate up the clouds during the night, and
at dawn the only remnants of what the evening before had looked like a
storm were the cloud-caps upon Tripyramid and Kancamagus, and a band of
mist across Church’s Pond at the western end of the intervale. We were
dressing about seven o’clock when our host came to our door, saying, “If
you want to see a fox, come quickly.” I ran into the east room and
caught a last glimpse of Reynard trotting briskly over the snow towards
the rising sun. He seemed to be following a scent which went in a
somewhat wavy line across the field. At eight o’clock, just as we were
striding up the road to pay a visit to the crossbills, a wild cry rang
from the forest and echoed from end to end of the valley. It was the
voice of the timber-eater, coming northward by his tortuous path from
Upper Bartlett, and calling for his day’s food. The men at the lumber
cars near our house bustled a little, and then started down the track to
see the engine come in. On its arrival one heavily laden car was
attached to it, and the train, thus made up, at once started back.
Meanwhile, we had met two tree sparrows by the roadside and seen our
crossbills and goldfinches on their favorite trees. They had,
apparently, eaten none of the cracked corn sprinkled for them upon the
snow. As the train was about to start, we boarded the engine and gained
a promise from the engineer to let us out at the foot of Bear Mountain.
Crossing Swift River, the train entered the spruce forest and began its
winding journey towards Upper Bartlett. With my head out of the
left-hand window, I absorbed all the novelty and beauty of the scene.
Inside, the engineer sat at his window with his earnest eyes looking up
the track, his strong hand upon crank or lever, and his face grave and
quiet. The fireman poured oil into the sucking cups above the boiler;
then he clanked the chain of the furnace door, peeped into the raging
fire within, hurled into it a shovelful of coal dust, rammed it home
with the poker, worked the movable lever which dumped ashes, and again
poured oil into the sucking, choking cups.
Outside, the spruce forest hemmed us in, but rising above it headland
after headland of black rocks, snow-incrusted ledges, and lofty spruces
came into view, frowned upon us, and were left behind. A flock of blue
jays crossed in front of the engine, a red squirrel whisked along a log
by the track. Now the rails sloped up so that the engineer increased his
power, then the track fell away so that all power was cut off. Trestle
after trestle was crossed, strange piles of bark-covered logs which
groaned under our weight as we rolled over them.
After traveling four miles to get ahead less than two, the engineer
stopped for us to begin our climb up Bear Mountain. He leaned out of his
window, giving us advice and wishing us a fair trip. Then he applied the
power, and the great mass moved on through the notch towards Upper
Bartlett. This short piece of rough road is operated solely to carry out
lumber and logs; but if people wish to ride, they are taken without
charge. It is said that if the road refused to take them they could
compel it to run passenger trains.
The point at which the kindly engineer had stopped to leave us was the
lower end of a series of lumber roads leading to the upper slopes of
Bear Mountain. The mountain, once covered with an immense spruce forest,
has now been stripped of the greater part of its valuable timber.
Beginning at the main road in which we stood, dozens of minor roads held
the mountain in their embrace. They reminded me of the tentacles of an
enormous devil-fish. Near the focus of all these roads we found a log
cabin and stables. The cabin was one of the best I have ever seen. It
was about sixty feet long, and contained a room at each end and roofed
space in the middle open at front and back. Near the house we heard bird
voices, and I at once used my Spanish whistles. The effect was
excellent. Four or five red-bellied nuthatches, one white-bellied, and a
small flock of pine finches responded. The siskins were very noisy and
quite restless. They were feeding on the seeds and buds of a tall birch.
Leaving the hut at nine o’clock, we strolled up the snow-covered roads.
The voices of birds were ever in our ears. Squirrel and rabbit tracks,
with now and then the tracks of a fox, followed or cut the roads. The
snow was five or six inches in depth and covered by a thin and brittle
crust. In many places numbers of well-filled beechnuts were strewn upon
the ground. This is beechnut year, and the squirrels have more than they
can pick up. The snow in the road was easy to walk upon, the air was
mild, the sun warm, the spruces rich with olive light and brilliantly
contrasted with the deep blue sky against which our mountain towered. On
each side of the narrow way “top wood” and branches were piled in
ramparts. The many roads reaching up the mountain are in places set so
closely together that their ramparts of top wood touch each other,
forming almost impassable barriers.
It was in one of these tangles that I discovered two small woodpeckers
at work tapping upon the trunks of two unhealthy spruces spared by the
axe. I saw at a glance that the birds were unfamiliar in coloring, and I
crawled in among the top wood to examine them more closely. To whistles,
hooting, and squeaks they paid no attention, but kept on hammering the
trees until small flakes of loose bark flew at every blow. My crashing
through snow and branches startled one bird, but the other stood his
ground until I got within about fifteen feet of him. My glass brought
out every detail of his plumage. Upon his head was a yellow cap, his
throat was snowy white, his sides were finely, delicately barred with
black and white, his back was largely black, but down his spine ran a
belt of black and white cross-lining. Instead of having four toes like
the downy and other common woodpeckers, this stranger from the north had
but three toes. He was the ladder-backed woodpecker of the great
northern forests. During the twenty minutes that I watched him he made
no vocal sound, but worked incessantly, tearing away bark, and drilling
into the trunk of the spruce. When he had inspected the tree to its
highest part he flew several rods to rejoin his mate.
At last the roads ended and we entered the remnant of dark forest which
crowns the mountain. There was a chill in the gloomy shades. The snow
was softer and deeper here. It covered innumerable boulders closely
wedged together between the stems of the spruces. On the sides of these
rocks we could see delicate mosses imprisoned in the ice and snow. At
frequent intervals we encountered masses of fallen timber wrecked by
hurricanes. Another obstacle to our ascent was the dense growth of young
spruces which in places made walking almost impossible. In the edge of
an open space in this forest we called together the birds by means of my
whistle. A flock of juncos appeared in a pile of top wood; red-bellied
nuthatches came and clung head downwards on the nearest trunks and
_quanked_ at us, kinglets bustled in, peeped at us, and bustled out, a
dozen or more red crossbills alighted close above us and to our
satisfaction made the note which had so puzzled us yesterday and which
sounds like the robin’s alarm-note. Best of all, a flock of sixty pine
siskins came into the nearest trees, and one or two of them came down to
the level of our heads and questioned us plaintively. The body of sweet
sound made in a conversational way by these gentle, cheerful little
birds, was amazing.
We reached the summit at about noon, and were fully repaid for the three
hours’ climb. During the ascent, charming views of Passaconaway,
Tripyramid, Kancamagus, and the dazzlingly white fields of the intervale
had greeted us whenever we stopped to rest. Now were added Chocorua,
Moat, Pequawket, Mount Washington and his supporting mountains, the
Franconia group, Carrigain, and the Bartlett valley. Moat and Chocorua
are much alike from this point of view. They are both comparatively
treeless mountains and were consequently snowy white. Their outlines
suggest combing breakers. Chocorua, being under the low-hanging sun, was
reflecting light from every crusted snowbank and ice-wrapped boulder. It
was like a mountain of cut glass. Mount Washington was unobscured, and
in the noonday sun as colorless as summer clouds. This snowy whiteness
of its upper mass wound in streams down its sides, as soft frosting
pours in grooves down the sides of a birthday cake. Between these
streams of whiteness ran upward long fingers of dark forest. Most of the
other mountains in sight were wooded to their summits, and so contrasted
sharply in their sombre colorings with their snowy rivals.
The narrow ridge which forms the top of Bear Mountain is blockaded by
fallen timber. Squirming through the tangle, we saw all the views and
then sat down in the sun on piles of spruce branches and ate our lunch.
Having no water, we quenched our thirst by mingling snow with our bread
and eating them together. As we ate and rested, looking across a wooded
valley toward Carrigain and the Franconias, a flock of white-winged
crossbills alighted above our heads and talked to us. Several were rosy
males in the perfection of plumage. Many more siskins came and went, and
so did a flock of four red nuthatches and several kinglets.
Our descent was rapid and amusing. We plunged downward from tree to tree
with long strides and slides, sometimes falling, often coasting faster
and farther than we wished. Three more flocks of crossbills, many dozens
of siskins, and a scattering of nuthatches gladdened us as we pushed
down the slopes. A hawk, too, came quite near to us, soaring at last so
as to clear the mountain’s crest. He was rather small, and very quick
and jerky in his wing motions. He circled from left to right in small
curves.
[Illustration: MOUNT CHOCORUA AND THE LAKE IN WINTER]
While walking home on the railway we were fortunate enough to call to us
a small flock of pine grosbeaks, five or six only, and having no red
birds in their number so far as I could see. Red squirrels were
ubiquitous. I think we saw, or heard the chattering of, at least twenty
during the day. I have been told so often that chipmunks keep closely
housed in winter that when one squealed at me from his hole near the
track I did not trust either my own ears or those of my friend. Seeing
is believing, however, and a dozen or two rods farther on another
chipmunk stayed on his log long enough for us to count his stripes and
wish him a merry Christmas.
We reached home at about half past four, just as the western sky was
filled with rosy light by a sun already set. Venus, close to the dark
rim of Passaconaway, and Jupiter, in the higher sky, summoned the stars
to their posts, and encouraged us to beg for supper.