Adirondack Peeks Summer 2023

that never but thrice before had he seen such a sunset. The air was cool and crisp, bearing against us with a steady current from the west. It did not vary. There was no eddy, nor rip ple, nor undulation in it. It seemed as if the whole atmosphere had be come loosened, and was moving bodily eastward. With what words shall I be able to make you see what we saw? The air was pure and clear as a newly-cut diamond, white and colorless as mountain air always is—a perfect lens through which with unimpeded eye we saw the marvelous transfiguration from day to night go on. Five thousand feet beneath us, Lake Placid slept, veri fying its name. In the south, a hun dred mountain peaks were ablaze with the peculiar red sunset light. For a hundred miles the wilderness stretched away—a deep green sea, across whose surface the sun was casting great fields of crimson. Amid the darker portions eighty patches of gold flashed, representing as many lakes. Eastward the valley of Champlain lay in deep shadow. To the north, bounding the vision like a thread of silver, gleamed the

St. Lawrence. In the valley to the south, lay the martyred dust of him who died on a Virginia gallows, that American manhood and American liberty might not perish. The clos ing moment now had come. The heavens to the west were swathed in the richest tints of scarlet and orange. A thousand colors lay on forest and lake. The mountain sum mits flamed. The sun, like a globe of liquid fire, quivering in the inten sity of its heat, stood as if balanced on the western pines. Down into them it burnt its way. Pausing for a moment, and only for a moment, it poured its warm benediction upon the forest, sent a crimson farewell to each mountain-top, kissed the clouds around its couch, shook, quivered, dropped from sight! And there in the crisp air we three stood, and gazed in silence westward, un til the shadows deepened along the sky, the fog crept in and filled once more the valleys at our feet; and the wilderness which had been to me and mine a nurse and home, and which we feared we should never see or enter together again, lay wrapped in silence and in gloom.

rarefied current died out be neath it, and pausing a moment in the still air, it poured out its myriad drops. The sun smote against the crys tal globes, until they gleamed and glowed, and a gorgeous arc grew in the air so nigh that we could put our hands into the crimson tints. "See, see!" said one, "we hold the rainbow in our hands, and we will call this Rainbow Gorge." And the old guide said, "Let it be so called forever." The hours rolled on; and a Sabbath such as we had never be fore passed, drew to its close. The sun stooped to its setting; and, standing on the topmost pinnacle, we watched to see the day die out. Never before had our eyes seen, and never again, doubtless, will they behold such a sight. The old guide, whose axe had first blazed a path up its steep side; who, thirty years before, had built him a stone lodge upon its crest, that be might pass his nights upon this mountain, so dearly did he love the charm of its solitude; whose face was as rough and seamed as the gray granite on which he stood, said, as he crouched at our feet, wrapped in his blanket,

Photo, "Island in the Sky," by Joey Priola

SUMMER 2023 | 23