Mount Holyoke







It's a helluva hike up to the summit. There were a handful of people making the trek on this late autumn day. None of them lugged a Kodak Medalist on a tripod. I didn't see any Agfa Click II's either. I didn't even see a Click I.

The Medalist is a brick of a camera. Not the type to be worn around the neck. 6x9's on 620 film.

The Click II is light as a pickpocket's touch.



Halfway up the mountain. The Halfway House.

Click II - Photo by EFG



Getting a drink

Cell phone camera



Setting up The Medalist

Steady, Honey. Steady.



View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow (51.5 x 76 in.) painted in 1836 by Thomas Cole



The view today.  Cole couldn't have conceived of atmospheric haze in 1836.

The Connecticut River begins as a stream in northern New Hampshire and ends at the Atlantic Ocean in Old Lyme Connecticut.
It's prone to flooding and offers good smallmouth bass fishing.

The Oxbow was once part of the main river. A flood in 1840 separated The Oxbow from the river.



Cold wind



The Summit House

In 1821, an 18-by-24-foot (5.5 by 7.3 m) guest cabin was built on Mount Holyoke by a local committee—one of the first New England summit houses. The property changed hands several times between 1821 and 1851 when it was bought and rebuilt as a two-story, eight-room hotel. Local entrepreneurs John and Frances French were the primary owners; between 1851 and 1900, the hotel and property were subject to a number of upgrades and related construction projects including a covered tramway to the summit of the mountain (first drawn by horse, then mechanized), a railroad from the base of the mountain to a steamboat dock on the Connecticut River, and the construction of a number of outbuildings and trails. With passenger steamship to the connecting summit railway established, the Mount Holyoke "Prospect House" became a popular tourist destination. The steamship would pick up guests at the Smiths Ferry railroad station across the Connecticut River in what was then Northampton, ferry them to a tramway leading to the Half Way House. From there guests could take a steep (600 feet long, rising 365 feet) covered inclined tram to the summit. The track for this tram was first laid in 1867 and the system electrified in 1926.

The summit house's 1894 annex had suffered from storm damage during the Great Hurricane of 1938 and had been demolished; in 1942 the enclosed tramway to the summit house broke down. A heavy snow storm in 1948 collapsed sections of the roof. Despite proposals to repair the tram it never ran again. The tram was finally demolished in 1965. State funds for maintenance of the summit house during the 1950s and 1960s were never adequate and by the mid-1970s there were proposals to condemn and demolish the summit house. This led to a public outcry and in the mid-1980s the summit house, consisting of the original 1851 structure and the 1861 addition, was restored by the state and through the efforts of local volunteers.



North section of Summit House.