The western guardian peaks of the Keene Valley are the main range of
the Adirondacks, including Mount Marcy or Tahawus. Mount Colvin,
alongside the Ausable Lakes, was named in honor of Verplanck Colvin,
the New York surveyor and geologist, who devoted years of energy to
the survey of this wilderness, and perhaps knew it better than anyone
else. He was always in love with it, and thought that few really
understood it. He described it as "a peculiar region, for though the
geographical centre of the wilderness may be readily reached, in the
light canoe-like boats of the guides, by lakes and rivers which form a
labyrinth of passages for boats, the core, or rather cores, of this
wilderness extend on either hand from these broad avenues of water,
and in their interior spots remain to-day as untrodden by men and as
unknown and wild as when the Indian paddled his birchen boat upon
those streams and lakes. Amid these mountain solitudes are places
where, in all probability, the foot of man never trod; and here the
panther has his den among the rocks, and rears his savage kittens
undisturbed, save by the growl of bear and screech of lynx, or the
hoarse croak of the raven taking its share of the carcass of slain
deer." The tangled Adirondack forest may to some seem monotonous and
even dreary, but Mr. Street, the poet-writer of the region, thus
enthusiastically refers to it: "Select a spot; let the eye become a
little accustomed to the scene, and how the picturesque beauties, the
delicate minute charms, the small overlooked things, steal out like
lurking tints in an old picture. See that wreath of fern, graceful as
the garland of a Greek victor at the games; how it hides the dark,
crooked root, writhing snake-like from yon beech! Look at the beech's
instep steeped in moss, green as emerald, with other moss twining
round the silver-spotted trunk in garlands or in broad, thick, velvety
spots! Behold yonder stump, charred with the hunter's camp-fire, and
glistening black and satin-like in its cracked ebony! Mark yon mass of
creeping pine, mantling the black mould with furzy softness! View
those polished cohosh-berries, white as drops of pearl! See the purple
barberries and crimson clusters of the hopple, contrasting their vivid
hues!--and the massive logs peeled by decay--what gray, downy
smoothness! and the grasses in which they are weltering--how full of
beautiful motions and outlines!"
From the Keene Valley we climb up the gorge of a brisk little brook to
the westward, and passing through the notch between Long Pond Mountain
and the precipitous sides of the well-named Pitch-Off Mountain, come
to the pair of elongated deep and narrow ponds between them,--the
Cascade Lakes,--stretching nearly two miles. Huge boulders line their
banks with a wall of rough and ponderous masonry, entwined with the
roots of trees, and like the Ausable Lakes, they are another Alpine
formation, their surfaces being at twenty-one hundred feet elevation,
yet resting in the bottom of a tremendous chasm. An unique cascade,
falling in successive leaps for seven hundred and fifty feet down the
southern enclosing mountain wall, has given them the name--a delicate
white lace ribbon of foaming water, finally passing into the lower
lake. The grand dome of Mount McIntyre, in the main Adirondack range,
rises in majesty to an elevation of fifty-two hundred feet, a sentinel
beyond the western entrance to this remarkable pass. Formerly
iron-ores were found here, but iron-making has been abandoned for the
more profitable occupation of caring for the summer tourist. Beyond
these lakes the summit of the pass is crossed, and there is a farm or
two upon a broad plateau, at twenty-five hundred feet elevation, the
highest cultivated land in New York State. Comparatively little but
hay, however, can be raised, the seasons are so short and fickle. Deer
haunt this remote region, and their runways can be seen. Emerging from
the pass, with the little streams all running westward to the
Ausable's western branch, there is got a fine view of the main
Adirondack range, with the massive Mount McIntyre and the almost
perpendicular side of Wallface rising beyond, the deep notch of the
famous Indian Pass, cut down between them, showing plainly. Both peaks
tower grandly above a surrounding galaxy of bleak, dark mountains.