Camps and Tramps About Ktaadn. 



8i5 



EAST BRANCH OF THE PENOBSCOT. 



strapped our coats and waistcoats about our waists (the best way to 

 carry weight, as John Gilpin knew), and scrambled up a dry stream- 

 bed, over every form and size of rocky impediment, till we reached 

 a "slide," which I supposed might conform to the angle of repose; 

 but the unscientific way in which Ktaadn rocks will arrange them- 

 selves, overhanging rather than receding, I leave succeeding tramps 

 to account for. It was a hard and exhausting scale, but by no means 

 a harmful one, when there were plenty of rests. We ascended a 

 slide in the north lobe of the Great Basin, — the lowest part of the 

 mountain, and yet so high that lichens were the largest growths, — 

 and there we found what is called the table-land, but which is, in 

 fact, a gradual slope toward the west. Here Don Cathedra and his 

 L, r uide left us to explore the comparatively undiscovered North Basin, 

 and we proceeded up a gradual but rugged incline, now through 

 entangling shrubs, now over patches of huge rocks tumbled to- 

 gether, until we at last reached the summit of Ktaadn. 



I have seen many stretches of splendid landscape from many 

 mountain tops, but to my thinking the view from the top of Ktaadn 

 is the most remarkable and the most beautiful I have ever seen. It 

 was, on this peculiarly bright day, a panorama of exceeding splendor. 

 The groundwork of the whole visible landscape is a vast wooded 

 plain, broken in the rear of Ktaadn by a few bold and picturesque 



