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Mount Monadnock, or Grand Monadnock, is a 3,165 feet (965 m) peak in southwestern New Hampshire, United States, which has drawn attention for years by its relative isolation from other mountains.
The word "monadnock" has been adopted by American geologists as an alternative term for an inselberg. In glaciation events, a monadnock may remain ice-free above the iceflow that surrounds it, forming a nunatak and thus may retain relics of the pre-glacial period. This peak is often called Grand Monadnock, to differentiate it from other Vermont and New Hampshire peaks with "Monadnock" in their names. The peak is largely composed of schist and quartzite rocks.
History
Monadnock was the site, in the 19th century, of a toll carriage road, still visible, and of a resort hotel. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson were among those who climbed and wrote about the mountain. Herman Melville compared the hump of Moby Dick to Monadnock when describing Captain Ahab's final struggle with the whale. In the same period, uncontrollable fires — some supposedly set to drive wolves out of thickets to be shot (the last wolf killed in the state of New Hampshire was in 1887) — destroyed crucial vegetation, permitting severe erosion and creating a tree line that still persists, though the mountain is too low to have a naturally bare summit.
Ownership of the mountain is a patchwork of protected lands: some of the mountain is within Monadnock State Park, while other portions are owned by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests or the town of Jaffrey. Monadnock is criss-crossed by well-maintained hiking trails. The New Hampshire state park authority reported in 2003 that the park sees 95,000 visitors yearly.
Monadnock is often described as "the second-most-climbed mountain in the world," with 125,000 climbers yearly, behind only Mt. Fuji in Japan, with about 200,000 yearly climbers. Bus routes that head part way up Mt. Fuji opened in 1990, and it has been suggested by some that Mt. Monadnock may be in first place if Mt. Fuji's bus riders are not counted. On the other hand, despite the bus rides, each person who reaches the summit of Mt. Fuji has climbed about 5,000 vertical feet, more than the elevation of Mount Monadnock. Other contenders for the title of the "most-climbed mountain in the world" are legion. Tai Shan, in China, for example, sees an estimated 1.5 to 2 million visitors yearly, though not all make the journey on foot.
Environs
The mountain is located mostly within the town of Jaffrey, New Hampshire. The 5,000 acre (20 km²) Monadnock State Park includes many well-used trails, crags, and minor peaks. The main summit and the most popular trails lie in Jaffrey; two other major trails have trailheads in the town of Dublin.
Monadnock is at the northern end of the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail , a long-distance trail stretching south through Massachusetts and half of Connecticut. As of 2006, there is a proposal under consideration that would designate the combination of the Monadnock-Metacomet with the Mattabesset Trail in Connecticut as a National Scenic Trail, giving it some of the status accorded to the Appalachian Trail.
Monadnock is also at the southern end of the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway, a trail connecting Monadnock and Mount Sunapee.
Biogeography
Due to fires in the early 19th century which burned a majority of the top 300 feet around the summit, there is little to no soil cover on the peak and its surroundings. Mount Monadnock is an example of a mountain which has an artificial tree line, occurring well below the actual climatic tree line of similar mountains in the region . As one ascends from the base to the summit, it is readily apparent that floral species abundance diminishes with increasingly shallow soil levels. Although the fact is not readily apparent, the summit is home to many different specialized sub-alpine species which can retain moisture for long periods of time.
Before the 19th century fires, Mount Monadnock was totally covered in a red spruce forest. Since the summit has been barren of soil cover, red spruce have been slowly ascending back towards the top in a process known as ecological succession.
Artistic tributes
The American composer Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000), who climbed Mount Monadnock several times during his youth, composed a symphonic fantasy entitled Monadnock, Op. 2, around 1935.
See also
References
- Thompson, Peter J., "Thoreau on Monadnock: Long on Botany and Philosophy, Short on Geology", Earth Sciences Dept., Univ. of New Hampshire
- GRANIT Data Mapper, University of New Hampshire
- Cheshire County Information Page
- Baldwin, Henry I. (1977). The Induced Timberline of Mount Monadnock, N. H. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, Vol. 104, No. 4, pp. 324-333
External links
- NH Division of Parks & Recreation: Monadnock State Park
- Mount Monadnock Photo Gallery
- Mount Monadnock Photo Galleries
- USGS Topographic Map: Monadnock Mountain
- Grand Mount Monadnock
- Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway Trail Club