Thoreau’s Mountains

For I believe that climate does thus react on man,—as there is something in the mountain-air that feeds the spirit and inspires (“Walking”).

Looking out toward the horizon from his native Concord, Henry David Thoreau frequently found inspiration in the distant mountains that populated his view:

Summer and winter our eyes had rested on the dim outline of the mountains in our horizon, to which distance and indistinctness lent a grandeur not their own, so that they served equally to interpret all the allusions of poets and travelers. . . (“A Walk to Wachusett”).

Throughout his life Thoreau would frequently journey to the mountains that dotted the Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont landscapes—to explore and reconnect with nature, to botanize the plants that grew among their peaks, and to escape the heat of Concord summers.


Mount Greylock
Mount Katahdin
Mount Kineo
Mount Lafayette
Mount Monadnock
Mount Wachusett
Mount Wantastiquet
Mount Washington

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