VACATION TRAMPS IN
NEW ENGLAND HIGHLANDS

By
ALLEN CHAMBERLAIN

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
AND MAPS



BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1919



Couching Lion (Camel’s Hump) from the East

THAT primitive and poetic pathway  —  the trail  —  has all the aroma of the wilderness. Ever intimate -with the woods and streams, it watches the white cascades, listens to the echoes of far-of dill, delays by the lonely shore of snow-bound lake, wanders in the forest prime­val, crosses in leisure the grassy, sun filled glades, skirts the time-stained crags, climbs into the heights, and tarries to look down into the valley. Clouds bound for unknown ports in the trailless sky adorn its realm with floating shadows. The trail, like a web of joy, over­spreads all the wild gardens of the earth.

 

ENOS A. MILLS: THE TRAIL

FOREWORD

"The tendency nowadays to wander in wilder­nesses is delightful to see. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are begin­ning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful, not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."

So wrote John Muir.

After his first experience of a tramp across New Hampshire's Presidential Peaks a friend wrote me, "We ought, as a duty, to go over this range, or something like it, as a pilgrim­age, at least once a year, in order to remember how fine the earth and sky can be and are."

If these pages can serve as a finger-board to indicate some of the "wildernesses" of New England that await the foot-free rover, and the ease with which they may be reached and enjoyed, their object will have been attained.

The author hereby expresses his appreciation of the courtesy of the Boston Evening Transcript and of Collier's Weekly in permitting the use of material which originally appeared in their columns. He "is also indebted to the officers and members of the Appalachian Mountain Club and of the Green Mountain Club for authoritative information essen­tial to insuring accuracy of statement.