An Ode to Cyrus Butler

Despite the sooty name, Black Mountain,

the climb to its top was anything but, it being swathed in

orange and yellow and several shades of red.

It looms above the central stretch of Lake George,

imperiously lodged on the eastern shore, the backbone dividing

Saint-Sacrament from Lake Champlain. The former

flows into the latter and thence to the St. Lawrence and out to sea.

From the more populous western shore

it may seem a raven-hued silhouette

before the sun clears its peak.

In the latter half of the 1800s this “Queen of Lakes” was all the rage,

the steep forests that gird the waters we plundered,

giving up their hardwoods for the charcoal forges

to springboard America’s industrial age

One Cyrus Butler bought the steamboat Minne Ha Ha

and erected the Ur-Adirondack Lodge,

at Black Mountain point, a choice destination.

With ready money from his iron works just miles north at

Ticonderoga, where the two lakes copulate,

he cowed the mighty mangy mountain,

logged down to pine and hemlock and some

straggly birch and poplar, to afford his more rugged

clientele access to the peak by mule or horse.

There, twenty-three hundred feet above the lake,

they might take in the astonishing view up and down its 32-mile length,
west across the expanse of the Adirondack massif—and east

the Green Mountains and Champlain plain.

Our band of hikers, two monks, a preacher,

a lawyer, and a singer set out on a cool Monday

in late October. We approached from the East

off Route 22, the same highway that cleaves little Cambridge.

The trail was carpeted in leaves, lovely to behold but

chancy of footing; it’s a rocky trail, a tectonic attribute.

Cyrus’ bridle path was well laid out, coping the ascent

by frequent switch-backs, with built-up corners of available stone,

unmoved after a century and then some.

The woods have rebounded to dense forest.

One must bend the mind to imagine industry abounded.

An hour into the climb we began to hear the strangest sound.

It had a Twilight Zone effect, getting sometimes louder and varying in pitch.

Deep woods have voices: from the purr of a breeze to roaring wind;
squeaks and squeals of broken trees, wedged in their falling

and pinched in their perch. But this was utterly alien.

It was above us, but nothing in the line of sight betrayed its source.

Descending hikers resolved our curiosity:

a wind turbine roosted on the summit.

The last half-mile revealed snow on ground greenery.

Gaps in the trees at rock ledges admitted teasing vistas. Logically the
steepest part of the trail provokes the “are-we-there-yet” temper.

By and by the tower came into view, and the turbine,

shining in the sunlight like a silver Jurassic pterosaur,

eight-foot blades and a rudder to head it into the wind.

In strong gusts it sounded menacing, as if at any higher speed

it would come unmoored and fly to pieces.

Lunch. Then the descent via the South face.

—So many views, including three large ponds

cupped in saddles lower down, it took effort

to eye the trail. I have fractured some ribs

learning this lesson: watch the track, use the poles.

We completed our loop and signed out

at the trail-head an hour before sunset,

with wobbly legs

but spirits buoyed by unbounded beauty.

The topside tower, no longer needed to

spot fires, satellites rendering them obsolete,

now serves as a Search and Rescue transmitter.

The fence enclosing the modest installation

bore a warning not to trespass or interfere:

Search and rescue is a service

to save lives......it could be yours.

A sermon subject lies cached therein.

Br Stavros, October 24, 2016