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First printed in Appalachia, December 1952. Crag, the Cozy Camp
An evening at Crag wouldn’t be complete without spending a while outside watching the lights of Gorham and Berlin far below and the suffused reflection on Madison from stars and moon. The cabin never looks quite as inviting as it does then with its lanterns flickering through the windows onto the snow. It is good for a moment’s profound soliloquy and then you rush inside to escape the cold. We were five snowshoers and
two skiers for the Twenty-oners’ excursion who had spent
a night at the camp and started out to climb Mt. Adams last April.
There were clouds on the summits and rain seemed to be sifting
through up there, but we started off nevertheless. The clouds
proved to be true to form when we hit timberline, but we plodded
on into the unreality that fog and rain bring to a mountain of
snow. All solidness was displaced except for seven moving figures.
Soon even they were no longer there. Having settled into the
rhythm of climbing, they encroached on the minds no longer. There
was not line of demarcation for time and space, and before we
reached the slope above the ravine’s headwall, there was
a long line of mountaineers out to conquer the peak that all
mountaineers know exists somewhere. It didn’t matter much
where they headed, the hill was there somewhere and mountains
breed patience. The wind, however, can be a frightful reality.
Snapping over the crest of the Adams ridge it cut into our void.
If we hadn’t decided of our own accord to turn back, it
would have pushed us in any event. Another warm hour inside Crag
Camp was an inducement, along with the wind, to hurry. Our material
goal unachieved, but our spiritual goal replete, we wended our
way down the trail.
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Crag
Camp is a retreat in the Northern Peaks of the Presidentials.
It is as comfortable in winter as in summer and twice as charming.
To judge from the blank appearance of the register in winter,
this is not well known or exploited. Crag is an architectural
felicity in these days when porches face on garages and picture
windows on main highways. Its window frames Mt. Madison with
the sensitivity of a great artist. It is blessed with a cantilevered
porch that faces King Ravine. If you stand there long in the
quiet, a structural phenomenon no engineer could contrive takes
place. The walls of the ravine recede beneath your feet, the
sky ahead widens unlimitedly, and you are projected into a space
for which science has no definition.