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White Mountain Trails / Tales of the Trails to the Summit of Mount Washington and other Summits of the White Hills cover

White Mountain Trails / Tales of the Trails to the Summit of Mount Washington and other Summits of the White Hills

Chapter 4: ILLUSTRATIONS
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About This Book

A linked series of field essays recounts hikes and observations across the White Mountains, moving from lake shores and pastoral foothills to high summits, ravines, and notches. The narrator combines practical route descriptions and shelter notes with vivid landscape imagery, seasonal weather scenes, and attentive natural history—wildflowers, butterflies, and mountain pastures. Encounters with Appalachian Mountain Club camps and local mountain dwellers appear alongside reflections on rural life and timbering. Photographic vignettes and lyrical reportage emphasize sunrise and cloud effects, rock formations, and the lived experience of trail travel, producing a readable blend of travelogue and nature writing.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Sunrise from the summit of Mount Washington Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
"The smooth highway over which thousands of automobiles skim in long summer processions from Massachusetts to the Mountains" 2
"You realize the grandness and beauty of this outpost sentinel of the White Hills" 8
"The shadowy coolness of evening was welling up and blotting the gold of sunset from the treetops" 16
The Glen Ellis River at Jackson, New Hampshire, Thorn Mountain in the distance 20
Down the Wildcat River, over the brink of Jackson Falls, Moat Mountain in the distance 24
"From nowhere does one get a better view of Kearsarge than from this little cairn on the plateau which is the summit of Iron Mountain" 44
Sunset over Iron Mountain and Jackson, seen from Thorn Mountain 46
Kearsarge and Bartlett, seen from Middle Mountain, near Jackson 48
From Eagle Mountain one may see Kearsarge, blue and symmetrical in the distance, peering over the shoulder of Thorn 50
Sunset light on the Southern Peaks, seen from the summit of Mount Washington 64
Clouds on Mount Washington, from the Glen Road, Jackson 78
Carter Notch seen over Doublehead from Kearsarge summit 80
"Always climbing by easy gradients toward the great V in the Carter-Moriah Range" 84
The Appalachian Mountain Club camp in Carter Notch 90
"The snow arch at the head of Tuckerman's Ravine holds winter in its heart all summer long" 96
"Then the shadows are deep under the black growth that spires up all about the little placid sheet of water, though it still reflects the sapphire blue of the clear sky above" 100
The Appalachian Mountain Club camp in Tuckerman's Ravine 104
"The giant is awake, has tossed his bed-clothes high in air, and is striding away along the notch behind their shielding fluff" 108
"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" 112
"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" 118
"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" 120
Butterfly-time on Mount Washington, the summit seen over the larger of the Lakes of the Clouds 128
The fantastic lion's head which, carved in stone, guards the trail along Boott's Spur toward the summit cone of Washington 136
"Semidea persistently haunts the great gray rock-pile which is the summit cone" 138
"The stocky, square-headed, white-faced cattle may well feel themselves superior to these beings far below who groom and feed them" 144
Mountain Sandwort in bloom on a little lawn near Mount Pleasant on the last day in July 154
Clouds on the Northern Peaks, Mount Adams seen from Mount Washington summit 160
"Where the path swings round the east side of Jefferson" 164
Cataract of clouds pouring over the Northern Peaks into the Great Gulf, seen from the summit of Mount Washington 168
"Dwarfed firs, beautiful in their courage, set spires along portions of their borders, dark, straight lashes for clear blue eyes" 182
Spaulding Lake at the head of the Great Gulf, Mounts Adams and Madison in the distance 188
"Profile of Webster," looking toward Crawford Notch from the old Crawford farm-house site 192
"Where railroad, highway, and river draw together and touch elbows in passing through the gateway of the Notch" 198
"Just below the nick of the Notch you may see where the Silver Cascade and the Flume Cascade hurry down from their birth on Mount Jackson, and farther down the vast slope of Webster" 202
In the heart of Crawford Notch, the summit of Jackson on the distant horizon 204
"As if giants had carved a huge, preposterous figure of a flying bird there for a sign to all who pass" 224
"Nor is this to be said in any scorn of the lumberman. He bought the woods and is using them now for the purpose for which he spent his money" 232
"My way to the Giant's Stairs lay over the high shoulder of Iron Mountain, where the road shows you all the kingdoms of the mountain world spread out below" 238
"From the top tread of the Giant's Stairs one sees half of the mountain world, the half to southward" 248
"On the way the gray brow of Mount Cannon looks in through the gaps in the foliage" 256
Profile Lake, Franconia Notch, and Mount Lafayette from Bald Mountain 264
"Such beauties as these the mountains set daily before the eyes of the man who hewed out the highest farm in New England on the high shoulder of a westerly spur of Wildcat Mountain" 270
"The Glen Boulder has a George Washington nose, a Booker Washington chin, and the low forehead of the cave man" 288
The Crawford trail along Franklin, Mount Pleasant in the distance 294
"The world was blotted out in a gray mass of scudding vapor that gradually became black night out of which by and by rain came hissing" 296