(HOST) Commentator Tom Slayton, veteran journalist and editor-emeritus of Vermont Life magazine, is also a dedicated hiker. And he’s looking forward to getting out on the trails again – just as soon as they’re dry!
(SLAYTON) This late-winter time is often, for me, a time of eagerly poring over maps and trail guidebooks, thinking of outdoor adventures to come. And so, lately, I’ve been looking at maps of the Long Trail and a new little booklet that tallies some of the place names along that trail.
The names sprinkled along the main range of the Green Mountains tell some of our history. And they can be a lot of fun.
For example, no one knows precisely why the highest summit on Lincoln Mountain was named Mount Ellen. We do, however, have some clues. We know, for example, that most of the summit ridge of Lincoln Mountain was one of several important Vermont peaks conserved by the Middlebury millionaire Joseph Battell, and that Battell, in 1901, published a meandering philosophical opus entitled "Ellen, or the Whispering of an Old Pine." In that book, a young girl named Ellen climbs "Ellen’s Mountain" and talks with a pine tree. Really.
So it is quite likely that Battell named the forested peak after his heroine. However, a competing theory holds that the name came from Sir Walter Scott’s poem, "The Lady of the Lake," whose heroine was also named Ellen. That name might have been bestowed by another mountain eccentric, the trail-builder Will Monroe, who had an affection for Scottish names.
So, in just one name, we have echoes of two great defenders of the Green Mountains and two works of literature. Not a bad haul.
Roy Buchanan was a famous trail worker who built many of the early shelters on the Long Trail. So naturally there’s a Buchanan Mountain. But there’s also a more light-hearted memorial to Buchanan in the Wampahoofus Trail on Mount Mansfield. Buchanan named the trail after a mythical mountain creature, the "side-hill wampahoofus," which was said to have evolved two short legs on one side and two long legs on the other – to cope with the steep mountain slopes of Vermont!
Sometimes the place names in Vermont’s mountains refer to the early history of the state. Kelley Stand Road, which crosses the Long Trail near Sunderland, takes its name from the tiny village of Kelley Stand, an overnight stagecoach stop that no longer exists.
There are more recent names as well. "Jungle Junction" commemorates a spot on the south side of Pico Peak, where the Hurricane of 1938 created a "jungle" of blown down trees. Many of the shelters along the trail were named for Green Mountain Club volunteers – like Lula Tye and Minerva Hinchey, both of whom have shelters named after them. And then there’s Domey’s Dome, named after Captain R.H. Domey, who maintained trails in northern Vermont for many years and was, by all accounts, as bare on top as the mountain named after him.
I’m indebted, in writing this commentary, to a small booklet just published by the Green Mountain Club. It’s entitled "Place Names on Vermont’s Long Trail" and is a valuable addition to the club’s publications. Like the trail signs we encounter along the way, place names can tell us where we’re going and where we’ve been.