The Thoreau 14 - another new List

[rocket21]

Nice photos! I enjoyed a visit Wantastiquet a few years ago when I still in Western Massachusetts. I wanted to check out Fall Mountain, however I never made it over there - looks like a nice vista!

 

[RoySwkr]

I took a herd-path east for about a quarter-mile to some ledges, ascending en route a knoll that may have been the north summit, but I gather from subsequent map-study that Mine Ledge must have been to my south.

Somebody from the Brattleboro HS offered to sent me an old map of viewpoints on W, but I had no way to scan it and declined. There are still a couple outlooks on the road that point different directions than the monument. It used to be that once a year you could get a free T-shirt and bag lunch for hiking up, the official photographer took a photo of me at the monument eating lunch but somebody more photogenic made it into the album.

The true summit of Wantastiquet is the small contour perhaps .2 mi SE of the monument, there is no current trail there although there is junk radio stuff. Follow the road past the big radio tower (views here) and take the trail to Mine Ledge, then BW right uphill.

The most impressive part of Mine Ledge is the ridge SW from 416, there is a herd path along the top and a trail along the bottom from the col

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=42.85777,-72.53560&z=16&t=T

If you don't need anything at Wal-Mart, there is a trail from the SPNHF Madame Sherri Reservation, the page used to have a photo of the person the trail was named after unlike poor WC

 

[Amicus]

The true summit of Wantastiquet is the small contour perhaps .2 mi SE of the monument . . .

That's about what I figured. I only read about the trail from the Madame Sherri Reservation to Mine Ledge after I got home. I hope I get a chance to hike it and explore other views and the highpoint, on a clearer day.

As to WC (Walter H. Childs), whose name is preserved by the W. view-ledge memorial but whom Google does not acknowledge, I asked that senior local hiker I met on my descent. He once heard that WC was an officer of Estey Organ Company, world-famous and a leading Brattleboro employer for 100 years, until it closed its doors in 1960. As he heard it, Mr. Childs put some effort into hiking trails to the top of W., as a beneficial pastime for the Company's employees.

 

[buckyball1]

A--i enjoy these little 'niche TRs (but this thread does have over 2500 hits )--places i've never (and probably never will) hike, but always a good read/learning experience--your more recent addition of interspersed pics adds a lot--

j

 

[Amicus]

Thoreau 16 completed

South Mtn. - Catskills (Aug. 14, 2009)

Thoreau's Journal for his 1844 walking tour of the Catskills is lost, but he lodged at Scribner's Boarding House, about a mile from the summit of South Mtn., near Kaaterskill Falls, and as there were trails to its summit even then, he surely hiked to it. Armed with detailed information from Mark Schaefer, I hiked there too today, in a counterclockwise loop starting from the Scutt Rd. trailhead, just before the entrance to the NYS North/South Lake Campgrounds.

After passing the Scribner's site, I soon reached the Escarpment Trail, which winds counterclockwise like the parapet of a gigantic castle along the cliffs that rim the broad, flat summit plateau, .from the west to the northeast. The many stirring vistas, from Sunset Rock and Inspiration Point, in particular, would have been finer on a less hazy day, such as the view NW up Kaaterskill Clove:

The summit was home to the grand Kaaterskill House until it conflagrated in the 1920s. It is hard do say exactly where the high-point is, but I tentatively located it at a bootleg campsite in open woods 20 yards north of the summit meadow.

The Escarpment Trail gave me more great ledge panoramas to south, east and NE, especially from Eagle Rock and the site of the Catskill Mountain House (the original grand hotel of the Catskills), as I completed my circle to South Lake, but clouds and haze kept thickening. My route was a pleasant loop of about seven miles. Not much of a day for pix, but a few more are here.

Mt. Kineo - Moosehead Lake, Maine (October 8, 2009)

On his third visit to the Maine Woods, in July 1857, Thoreau and a companion paddled the length of Moosehead Lake, from Greenville in the south to the Northeast Carry, in the birch bark canoe of their remarkable Native American guide, Joe Polis. Where the Lake pinches down to a one-mile channel in the middle, they camped on the east shore of that channel. There, while Joe Polis fished for trout, Thoreau and companion climbed to the summit of Mt. Kineo - a "great mass of rock rising precipitately 800 feet above the surface of the Moosehead."

buckyball and I were happy not to be paddling today, as the choppy waters washed over the low bow of our little pontoon ferry during our 10-minute crossing from Rockwood. The steep Indian Trail to the summit Tower more than compensated in terrific views for its tricky footing, made worse by wet leaves. What a remarkable collection of vistas of neighboring mountains:

and the Lake:

for a hike of not quite 4 miles! The Bridle Trail down makes a mellow loop. A few more photos are here.

---

This completes my Thoreau 16. I know of two previous finishers - Henry David himself and, a couple of years later, RoySwkr.

"On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning."

H. D. Thoreau

 

[RoySwkr]

This completes my Thoreau 16. I know of two previous finishers - Henry David himself and, a couple of years later, RoySwkr.

I think my claim to have completed the list was before you added South Mtn. I have hiked the trail along the escarpment and visited the ruins of the Kaaterskill Mtn House, but made no attempt to find the true summit and haven't logged it on ListsofJohn.

HDT spent more time there than I did, but not knowing what was on the highpoint then he may not have been to that exact spot either as he may have preferred the clifftop views and hotel amenities. So Mr. A may be the first true finisher.

 

[Amicus]

I think my claim to have completed the list was before you added South Mtn. I have hiked the trail along the escarpment and visited the ruins of the Kaaterskill Mtn House, but made no attempt to find the true summit and haven't logged it on ListsofJohn.

You are admirably scrupulous, but the flat summit of South Mtn. is a pancake with pimples, once occupied by the sprawling grounds of the Kaaterskill Mtn. House. Unless someone has isolated the highest pockmark with reliable equipment, I would credit anyone who has explored those grounds, as you did.

Nevertheless,

So Mr. A may be the first true finisher.

is an opinion that would gratify me, if generally accepted. Still, I would have to acknowledge the lameness of becoming a First Finisher only by dint of inventing the List.

 

[Mark Schaefer]

You are admirably scrupulous, but the flat summit of South Mtn. is a pancake with pimples, once occupied by the sprawling grounds of the Kaaterskill Mtn. House.

Indeed, it is a pancake with pimples. We may now have a site that was greatly altered and unnaturally leveled at the time the Hotel Kaaterskill was constructed in 1881. In addition to the Hotel, a vast area of the mountain was cleared of all vegetation for an extensive lawn. All of this construction and clearing was many years after HDT visited the Catskills in 1844.

HDT spent more time there than I did, but not knowing what was on the highpoint then he may not have been to that exact spot either as he may have preferred the clifftop views and hotel amenities. So Mr. A may be the first true finisher.

Perhaps the question becomes whether HDT was more of a viewseeker than a peekbagger. The South Mountain summit would likely have had no clearing nor view when HDT visited, but the mountain as a whole was already laced with paths and carriageways built to connect the nearby Catskill Mountain House with the Scribner's Boarding House and the Kaaterskill Falls.

 

[Amicus]

Perhaps the question becomes whether HDT was more of a viewseeker than a peekbagger.

HDT was the first peak-bagger. He completed the Thoreau 16 on July 15, 1858, when he climbed to the summit of Mt. Lafayette by the Old Bridle Path. His Journal entry recording his emotions upon achieving this feat is lost, but scholars conjecture that it would have read like this:

Today I climbed to the top of the mountain that is called Lafayette, also Great Haystack, thereby completing the list that I have named the Thoreau 16. (No harm in tooting my own trumpet a little, I think.) I am the First Finisher, which is pretty cool when you think about it.

I have written the name of each of these peaks on a slip of paper as I have climbed them, and have kept these slips in a hempen bag here by my writing desk. So, perhaps I could call this pastime that I have invented "peak bagging."

My little list will never appeal to the masses, I think, but I foresee a day, perhaps 151 or so years from now, roughly, when some superbad dude will follow in my footsteps. My hat is off to that hero!

- HDT

 

[RoySwkr]

HDT was the first peak-bagger. He completed the Thoreau 16 on July 15, 1858, when he climbed to the summit of Mt. Lafayette by the Old Bridle Path.

He also apparently granted waivers for those who didn't quite reach the summit of Katahdin

 

[Chip]

Today I climbed to the top of the mountain that is called Lafayette, also Great Haystack, thereby completing the list that I have named the Thoreau 16. (No harm in tooting my own trumpet a little, I think.) I am the First Finisher, which is pretty cool when you think about it.

I have written the name of each of these peaks on a slip of paper as I have climbed them, and have kept these slips in a hempen bag here by my writing desk. So, perhaps I could call this pastime that I have invented "peak bagging."

My little list will never appeal to the masses, I think, but I foresee a day, perhaps 151 or so years from now, roughly, when some superbad dude will follow in my footsteps. My hat is off to that hero!

- HDT

Clever Scholars !