Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/415

 MT. 41.] WHITE MOUNTAIN TRIP. 389

In July, 1858, as mentioned in this letter to Mr. Bicketson, Thoreau journeyed from Con cord to the White Mountains, first visited with his brother John in 1839. His later companion was Edward Hoar, a botanist and lover of na ture, who had been a magistrate in California, and in boyhood a comrade of Thoreau in shoot ing excursions on the Concord meadows. They journeyed in a wagon and Thoreau disliked the loss of independence in choice of camping-places involved in the care of a horse. He complained also of the magnificent inns (&quot;mountain houses &quot;) that had sprung up in the passes and on the plateaus since his first visit. &quot; Give me,&quot; he said, &quot; a spruce house made in the rain,&quot; such as he and Channing afterward (1860) made on Monadnoc in his last trip to that mountain. The chief exploit in the White Mountain trip was a visit to Tuckerman s Ravine on Mt. Wash ington, of which Mr. Hoar, some years before his death (in 1893), gave me an account, con taining the true anecdote of Thoreau s finding the arnica plant when he needed it.

On their way to this rather inaccessible chasm, Thoreau and his comrade went first to what was then but a small tavern on the &quot; tip-top &quot; of Mt. Washington. It was a foggy day ; and when the landlord was asked if he could furnish a guide to Tuckerman s Ravine, he replied :