Thoreau In and On the Catskills

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In Elevating Ourselves, Henry David Thoreau’s journals from his trips up such mountains as Mount Greylock or Saddleback, the Katahdin, Mount Washington and the Catskills are examined and interpreted. When Thoreau lodged in the home of a saw-miller in the Catskills, his profound and interesting writing took place. It was here that he started to refer to things in a more serene and sophisticated manner. While the majority of his writings are peaceful and intelligent, of what we’ve read, I believe this to be a very pivotal point in which his writings came in a much more poet manor than probably intended.


When Thoreau settled to live on the Catskills, he discusses, “the auroral atmosphere” of the mountains around him and how he likens the feeling to Mount Olympus (Huber 5). It is a comparison that takes me by surprise. It is not very often an American writer refers to a place like Greece when describing how it feels in a much more tactless place that is hundreds of miles away. Not to insult the America of Thoreau’s time, but I think it is certainly difficult to know what kind of majesty that he experienced back then which, today, might be all but vanished from the places he visited. In my hike up the Tower Trail, I looked across the hills and valleys only to signs of industry beyond, and I couldn’t help but wonder just how much more breath taking it must have been when it was seen by the first settlers of America. The hardest thing to interpret is whether or not the feeling was accurately described concerning Mount Olympus, because I have not have the pleasure of being there to realistically compare it to the feeling I had during my Tower Trail hike. Also, the fact that he’d choose Mount Olypmus of all the mountains in the world he could refer too intrigues me greatly. Was he comparing himself to an entity of a god-like stature? Or was he simply saying that from up there one becomes so detached from humanity that it’s easy to think outside the traditional realm of the human mind? I would hope and assume the latter of the two.


When Thoreau is invited to tour Europe with Isaac Hecker on foot, he declines and reflects on the invitation in his journal. “…I cannot so decidedly postpone exploring the Farther Indies, which are to be reached you know by other routs and other methods of travel…” (Huber 7). He thinks it worthless and in a way pointless to travel in a place that has been and is still being traveled on. Thoreau thinks that getting away from civilization and living off the land and only with yourself to pull you through the situations is how one really can reflect on one’s self and his problems. I’m not sure if I completely agree with Thoreau here. I think it is still a trying experience to go to a land that one is not very familiar and try and blaze a path in a different since. I know many people that have backpacked around Europe that say it is an experience unlike anything else that they’ve been through, and those same two guys were very experienced hikers. I think the two activities produce very different emotions and results. While I don’t disagree with what Thoreau is saying, “…to live along the road…” is comparable to giving one’s self a safety net, I do disagree with his discussion not to go.


Of these two excerpts, I see that Thoreau has discovered just how liberating nature can be. I don’t necessarily find either one more intriguing than the other, in the sense that I don’t know enough about either instance to know what Thoreau was really thinking. But I do know that neither of these would be evident to me at all if it weren’t for Thoreau’s “Lewis and Clark” type of thinking. He simply could not let things go unnoticed or discovered. And as I read more about him and his travels, the more I wish our country still had undiscovered areas that I myself might be able to go seek out and discover. Thoreau believed this the best way to learn. He thought every college should be located at the foot of a mountain. As he wrote during his hike up Mount Greylock, “It would be no small advantage if every college were thus located at the base of a mountain…” (Huber 1). Had someone said that to me less than a year ago, I might not have thought anything of it, but being here at Quinnipiac has caused me to appreciate the uniqueness of our location and the infinite advantages and opportunities it awards me as well as every other student on the campus. Whether or not one takes advantage of it is up to the individual. I also appreciate that Thoreau doesn’t think it necessary to be an experienced hiker or camper. He thinks everyone can and should enjoy nature. It should not be limited to only those who have been schooled or educated in the matters of the outdoors. I couldn’t agree with him more.





I think what Thoreau is really trying to say through all of his journal writings is that no one should be afraid of the unknown. No one person should allow a fear of something keep them from doing what they enjoy. Discovery can only occur when the concern of what might go wrong so ignored so the individual can move beyond and take that leap of faith. Had Lewis and Clark allowed the fear of what might become of them in the wilderness dictate whether or not they would make the journey across America, there would be a whole lot less America to be proud of right now. Thoreau sees nature as the discovery and test of what any one person is capable of doing. I completely agree with him. “I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.” Thoreau and Einstein might have not been compared that often before but I see there methods as one in the same.


Works Cited


Huber, J Parker, ed. Elevating Ourselves Thoreau on Mountains. Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 1.


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