Just so happens (prompted by a thread elsewhere in cyberspace) I found an online version of a book by William James Sidis called "Passaconaway in the White Mountains" in which he quotes yet another book, "The White Mountains" by Julius H. Ward
...Ward devotes an interesting chapter, entitled "The Heart of the Wilderness," to Mt. Carrigain. In this chapter he enthusiastically says:¯
"It is the distinguishing characteristic of Mount Carrigain that it is in the centre of the White Mountain system and holds the key to the entire country. It is a bold and massive peak, wooded nearly to the summit, not desolate like Chocorua, not rifted with the fury of the gods like. Mount Washington, but unique in its beauty as seen from a distance, and presenting a wonderful panorama of the wilderness when you have climbed its summit and from its cairn look out at all points of the compass upon an uninhabited world. I have stood on the brow of the cliff that hangs over Kineo Bay at Moosehead Lake and strained the eye in every direction over the untrodden forest; I have surveyed the Adirondacks from the nose of Mount Mansfield and swept the field of vision through the lower Canadas; I have felt, as others have felt who have climbed these peaks, that, there was something about the view from them and something in the silence that reigns upon them which appeals strongly to the conception of universal Nature; but I think that the sense of utter separation from humanity, the sense of entire lostness in the wilderness, the sense of the complete abandonment of the soul to Nature was never realized as it was during my stay of a few hours on the topmost peak of Mount Carrigain."
Ivy, it may not be quite as isolated as it was back then but you sure picked a great mountain to finish on.
Don't forget - NO PEEKING!
Bob
