White Mountain Sojourn: 1-10-10 Study Break (it feels like I'm back in college)

Sunday, January 10, 2010

1-10-10 Study Break (it feels like I'm back in college)

On weekends when I stay home from the mountains to study for my "big" exam or catch up on job-related paper work I take breaks (and try to stay in shape) by running up nearby "Mt." Skinner alias Mount Holyoke (which the prestigious women's college was named for or vice versa). It's not really a mountain but has some cool glacial history and a 900 foot gain on a fairly steep incline so if nothing else it's a good workout with spectacular views.

This is the north view towards Vermont and New Hampshire which are over there in the distance along with the Connecticut River which meanders down through the valley, and, over to the right, the University of Massachusetts physics building is gleaming in the sun. This very spot was once the southern terminus of Glacial Lake Hitchcock that formed when the Wisconsian ice sheet melted.

And this is the view west towards Mt. Greylock (highest in Massachusetts) which is just visible on the skyline. Vermont's Mt. Stratton and Mt. Snow are on the right skyline.

I'm writing to announce the completion of the long blog piece on felsenmeer that I began two months ago (11-07-09). I'll probably do more rewritng on it as I like to tinker with things but it is essentially finished if anyone wants to read it in its completed form. In it I have promised not to mention the word "felsenmeer" again. We can all use a break, I think.

3 comments:

Unknown said...: Glad you got out for a break!
I don't suppose you've ever been able to find the vantage point from which the Thomas Cole painting "The Oxbow" was painted? Just comparing your 2nd photo with the painting shows how much the area has changed since the painting was created....; January 10, 2010 at 4:43 PM
Alex MacPhail said...: Hi Jason,It's good to hear from you. An artist friend found the exact place that captures the perspective of Cole's painting. It's close to the southwest corner of the state park building and the trees have overgrown the view of the oxbow.How are things in Thetford?; January 10, 2010 at 6:49 PM
Unknown said...: Things in Thetford are good! Looks like I'll be hiking on Sunday, so life is good ;-); January 20, 2010 at 7:18 AM

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About this Blog

White Mountain Sojourn offers an accessible and hopefully exciting way to interact with the landscape and the richly diverse natural history of the White Mountains of New Hampshire through a series of “snap shots”. These snap shots will include photos, research articles, and some personal observations from folks that work in and/or spend a lot of time in the mountains as well as observations provided by you (the readers). These snap shots will focus mainly on the natural history of the Whites during the past 10,000 years, or so, and they'll have the potential to show the subtle as well as dramatic changes in the natural history of the White Mountains over that period of time. The idea is that we often look at our landscapes from a single dimension of time, namely the immediate present, and then miss a lot of what is really going on there. The exciting part can be returning time and time again and seeing and understanding what goes on when we're not actually looking. The White Mountains are also a back drop for myriad human activities that took place all those thousands of years. White Mountain Sojourn will also be looking at some of the changes occurring at the present interface of human activity within this wild, beautiful forest ecosystem.

A little more about the author

I grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I lived in Intervale and North Conway, NH, from the late 1940's to the late 1950's. In 1961 I started working for the Appalachian Mountain Club as "croo" in the huts and eventually as a guide and naturalist. I continued working for the AMC during my college years. I took an inordinate amount of time to finish my undergraduate studies in plant ecology. To make it look like I was being productive I began writing what I hoped was an impressive-sounding Ecology of the White Mountains. With that grandiose title I received some useful notoriety but the problem was that I never really wrote anything. I kept up a facade the secret of which was just to act really cool. I pretended to be busy with small research projects that were supposed to relate to my Magnum Opus. One was titled "Comparative Frost Hardiness in Two Species of Larch." It was ingenious if only because it allowed me a great deal of free time during the warm months. I did manage to help others finish their research projects. I assisted L. C. Bliss for a while as he put together his brilliant Alpine Zone of the Presidential Range and also helped my friend and colleague Larry Collins with his limnological study of the alpine lakes of the White Mountains. So, to bring you up to date Ecology of the White Mountains is still unfinished--a collection of musty, dog-earred notebooks just itching to get done--if only for old time's sake. So come along while I get it out of the box and rethink and redesign it. You can help by adding your thoughts, articles, insights, photos, criticism, etc. We can revisit every mile of the "Whites", bask on the summits, run down the trails, delight in the beauty.

Bibliography for White Mountain Sojurn

Note: Appalachia is the journal of the Appalachian Mountain Club. It is published twice yearly. It is now in it's 133 year of publication. Information on Appalachia can be obtained by contacting the AMC, 5 Joy Street, Boston, MA 02108.

Billings, Marvin P., Katharine Fowler-Billings, Chapman, Carleton A., Chapman, Randolph W., and Goldthwait, Richard P. The Geology of the Mt. Washington Quadrangle New Hampshire, The New Hampshire State Planning and Development Commision, Concord, NH, 1979.

Bliss, L. C., Alpine Zone of the Presidential Range. Bliss, 1963. Copies available from Alex MacPhail, 19 Hancock St. Northamton, MA 01060.

Borman, F.H. & Likens, G. E., Pattern and Process in a Forested Ecosystem, Spring-Verlag, 1981, New York, Heidleberg, Berlin

Cobb, Boughton, A Field Guide to the Ferns, Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1956, 1963. A Peterson Field Guide book.

Eusden, J. Dykstra, The Presidential Range Its Geologic History and Plate Tectonics, 2010, Durand Press, Lyme, NH. (An up-to-date, well constructed map of the bedrock geology of the Presies with an informative guide book attached.)

Fernald, M.L, Grays Manual of Botany, American Book Company, NY, Boston, Tornonto, 1950.

Goldthwait, Richard P. Mountain Glaciers of the Presidential Range in New Hampshire, Arctic and Alpine Research, Vol. 2, (Spring 1970), pp. 85-102. Available on Instarr, University of Colorado, Boulder

Goldthwait, James W., Goldthwait, Lawrence, Goldthwait, Richard P. The Geology of New Hampshire: Part I- Surficial Geology, The New Hampshire State Planning and Development Commision, Concord, NH, 1951, 1958.

Goldthwait, Richard P., Geology of the Presidential Range, New Hampshire Academy of Science, Bulletin Number 1 1940. out of print. Copies available from Alex MacPhail, 19 Hancock St. Northampton, MA 01060.

Harris, Stuart K., Plants of the Presidential Range, a seven-part series published in Appalachia 1940-1946 with reprints published by the AMC.

Harris, Stuart K., Merriam Underhill (and a host of other botanists), Mountain Flowers of New England, AMC Boston, 1964. out of print.

Leopold, Aldo, A Sand County Almanac, 1949, 1987, Oxford University Press, NY

Likens, G. E. & H. F. Bormann, Biogeochemistry of a Forested
Ecosystem (2nd Edition) 1995, Springer-Verlag, NY, Berlin, Heidelberg, etc.

Monahan, Robert S., Mt. Washington Reoccupied, Stephen Daye Press, Brattelboro, VT., 1933. out of print

Monahan, R. S., Timberline, Appalachia, Dec. 1933.

Newcomb, Lawrence, Wildflower Guide, Little, Brown, Boston, 1977. A comprehensive manual of plants in the Eastern US.

Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons, Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Pope, Ralph, Lichens Above Treeline (A hiker's guide to Alpine Zone Lichens of the Northeastern United States), 2005, University Press of New England, W. Lebanon, NH.

Slack, Dr. Nancy & Bell, Alice, New England Alpine Summits, AMC Boston, 2006, $16.95.

Steele, Frederick L., At Timberline; A Nature Guide to the Mountains of the Northeast, AMC, Boston, 1982. out of print.

Thompson, Will F., The Shape of New England Mountains, Appalachia, serialized in three parts: Dec. 1960, Dec. 1961, &
Dec. 1962.

Washburn, A.L. Periglacial Processes and Environments, Edward Arnold, Ltd., London, 1973. out of print

White Mountain Sojourn