Mount Independence

by Molly May

The many winding roads to Mount Independence opened into an empty parking lot and an immense concrete "boat" of a Visitor's Center wearing a greenish triangle wig. To be without the crowds was good. But the visitor's center seemed somewhat absurd--deliberately shaped like an old boat with a tin-like green roof and small entrance. My companions--Ben and Kelly--and I laughed about its awkwardness and forged ahead into the late, snow-dusty afternoon. Along with the looming boat, the zigzagged rail fence surrounding the area evoked a sense of true importance. It was all very American and fitting for such a historic site: the calendar-picture worthy fence, the open landscape, the red picnic benches peeking out from underneath the snow. The rolling hills began with great gusto, a small incline and a wide space to explore. Very American. After skimming some of the informational signs (and there were many), we looked at each other, smiled tiredly, and began to trudge up the wide rolling hill in expectation of finding Lake Champlain at the other end.

My initial response to the landscape was almost childlike. I wanted to run up the hill and somersault down--the snowy uphill valley seemed to call for that. As we continued toward the trailheads the land stretched wider, with cedars scattered in the middle and bunched closely on the sides. There were no people anywhere; it was all very quiet. Yet, despite the apparent solitude of the site, there were footprints everywhere--distinct evidence that the land had been well traveled at some point. My mind immediately trailed towards the possibility of soldier's ghosts walking around in confusion with broken legs, bloody limbs, wooden crutches, tattered uniforms. Ahhhh. I tore myself away from the thought by shaking my head and galloping up the hill.

We lamented not having brought cross-country skis, as the many fresh parallel markings were tempting our jumpy legs. I tried to imagine this place in the summer, with children scampering everywhere and the intentionally-planted bright flowers extending their necks. It was different now. The winter created a kind of no-man's land. At the top of the rolling hills, we found a small circular enclave with a large sign marking the various trails: Red, White, Orange, and Blue. The possibility of so many colors seemed jarring in the vast white of the landscape. We chose blue--perhaps because, under the open sky, it seemed the most real.

The openness soon dissolved into the constricted pathway of the blue trail, and it was then that I became more aware of the history around me. Mount Independence had been an American Revolutionary fort complex, a stronghold against the British to prevent their invasion from Canada via Lake Champlain. "You see that rectangular space to the left?" Ben asked us. And then he explained, "That was the soldiers' hospital… and right there, a soldier drowned when a flood overtook his tent." The supposed spot lay a couple feet in front of us. With the enclosure of the cedars and maples and this newfound knowledge, I further perpetuated my childlike reaction to the land. I gave into the eeriness and further contemplated the many ghosts around us, creeping and perhaps wanting to push us away from the land and its history.

We followed the trail down towards the water, tracing what had been a former supply road used to wheel cannons, rifles, food and water to the soldiers. Apart from the blue-square trail markings on the trees, there was only one visible color--the leaves of the American beech trees, their orangey red tails flapping in the wind, immune to the harsh patterns of winter. Such movement added to the occasional bird sounds and the faint hum of the distant roads. We continued rounding corners, tromping through light powder, sniffing wintergreen from tree barks, and sensing the space around us. On the right, the land mounted straight up to form a rocky cliff with trees literally hanging over the edge, precariously secured by their roots. The land slowly flattened out, as we brushed by the shriveled bush berries and ducked under a small canopy of trees.

I had by now almost forgotten the creepy presence of the history all around us, but still felt anxious to reach something, anything. We soon came upon a small cove of Lake Champlain; indistinguishable from the land, it was snow-covered, quiet, and bordered by mountains. After some discussion we leapt off the trail and headed towards the lake, eager to walk on the ice and explore. The leafless trees in the semi-circular cove were bent over the lake in unison, as if gently bowing to the lake god. We forked in three different directions and each began shuffling out onto the ice. Kelly immediately sat down near the shore to write--her legs akimbo, hand rapidly scribbling, head nodding up and down to make observations. Ben took off for the farthest point towards the right of the lake, and I set my sights only a hundred feet away on a nearby beaver dam, or at least the big pile of sticks that looked like one.

The beech trees were not the only reminders of color, out here; lake reeds turned orange by winter stuck up from the ice. They were like spider's legs--bent in half, seemingly stable, and all over the place--in bundles and alone. I made my way around the reeds and approached the alleged beaver dam; it did seem odd that beavers would choose to place their home here in the middle of the cove. And what they had built here sure as hell wasn't damming anything. But I had no sense of what else it could be. I came around the back of the pile to discover that it was actually shaped like the letter U, and in the center I found a tire and a garbage bag full of hay. I was confused. Then, as I circled the pile, I found an explanation in the form of a sign:

R. Holzworth
Fair Haven, VT
'98 Blind

It was a duck blind, unworkable in the winter (only I didn't know that until I asked Ben). My thoughts went straight back to the history of the land, and I considered whether the soldiers encamped here had had the leisure to hunt for sport, or simply had to do so out of necessity. And I looked up to the cliff, wondering whether they, too, had first hidden and then hunted. Nothing had really changed. As I stood on the ice, on the lake--in the Lake Champlain valley, surrounded by mountains--the value of water seemed more prominent than ever in my mind. For today's residents, it is now a font of recreation and life, but in the past, it was more--a place of possibility and, most importantly, a resource in need of defense.

The soldiers came to Mount Independence to aptly defend the water at the "choke point"--the Lake's bottleneck that led into the Champlain Valley from Canada. Unfortunately, the British went the extra step and lifted a cannon atop Mount Defiance, directly across from and higher than Mount Independence. With that move, the Americans soon fled and left the crucial choke-point abandoned. I thought about the duck blind again, and wondered whether R. Holzworth ever felt threatened by the ducks' higher elevation and perspective. It was a rather inane thought, but at least one that made me aware of the scope of human power over nature. The British could climb higher and fight back with gunpowder, but the ducks could only fly higher and maybe land a shit on the hunter's head. Not likely.

I had just clicked the camera to take a picture of Ben, when he called out to us, "Come see the point!" Kelly and I slid from our respective spots and met Ben at the rounded corner of the land; we both stared in awe at the massive, castle-like building on the far shore. Ben, the native Vermonter, named our view as Fort Ticonderoga--the partner in Mount Independence's defending of this choke-point on Lake Champlain. We began walking along the edge of the bank, slipping on the more visible ice and watching a distant snowmobile careening across the lake. A yellow sign caught the corner of my vision; it stood on the banks of the shore, as if to warn summer boats of the need for the preservation of this historic area:

DIGGING, METAL DETECTING,
AND ARTIFACT COLLECTING
ARE NOT PERMITTED.

We turned at the sign and headed back up the bank to catch our trail. After some moments of being temporarily lost, Ben led us to the path and we continued along it.

The trail opened into fields of snow, and then narrowed back into a thin path--much like the shape of an hourglass. We eventually came to the end of the blue trail. As we stopped to tie shoelaces and observe red berries, a train bellowed across the lake; the horns created an echoing sound of two different pitches, as if two trains were about to collide. And the noise bounced off the mountains in sharp bits of terror--just like open gunfire amidst bustling soldiers. Kelly stood below us, and her wide eyes indicated true concern. No crash ensued, though, and we hopped onto the orange trail and continued up--and up and up and up--the path until we reached the site of the fort on Vermont's side of the Lake. It was marked by a fence in the shape of a many-pronged star--the classic design for defenses based on cannon emplacements. From this point, we could see much of the lake below, and yet we were masked by trees and well-hidden. Such perfect defense and battle positioning. A memorial stone citing the date July 18, 1776 stood at the center, honoring the "Heroic Garrison which gave this fortification its name."

I had had the name Mount Independence prodding my mind as we tromped through the woods, around the Lake, and back up to the car. Our hike now on the orange trail away from the Lake seemed much longer, and I had more time to space out into reflection. The soldiers had named this site after the value they fought for and established--their country's independence. But the land and animals surely had lost independence with man's gain of it. It seemed strange, the more I considered the word in perspective. As we neared the end, Ben stopped at a hole near a tree; it looked as if an animal had dug it out for some reason. Bending over the spot, Ben told us that it might be a deer stamping. We non-Vermonters asked for the definition of the term, and he explained that deer mark their territory by grinding their hooves into the dirt. It all completed my train of thought: the soldiers had also marked their territory here. We (humans) had made a claim. They had built a fort, had lived here and some had even died on the land around us. And, in a sense, they continued to live here--whether as ghosts or simply memories. The land of Mount Independence had been preserved for the artifacts contained here, for the people who relish human political/military history and its presumed significance. And in turn, the beauty of the land had been left essentially untouched. I thought of the deer and his stamping of this land; it had been kept effectively "wild" and defended from destruction, not because he depended on it but because humans had once lived and survived on that very land.

How to get there: Leave Middlebury heading south on Route 30. Turn right (west) onto Route 74 in Cornwall and follow it till it reaches Route 22A in Shoreham. South on 22A to the intersection with Route 73, just a bit west of the tiny village of Orwell. Turn right (west) onto 73 and in half a mile or so, when it swings right (to the north) go straight instead…now you're on the Mt. Independence Road, which winds around to Lake Champlain and follows it north past several large dairy farms, then swings left up a hill to the parking area.

Here we are at the start of the rolling hills before the trails.

The map of the trails upon entrance to Mount Independence.

Ben is heading out onto Lake Champlain. The duckblind peeks up near the left corner.

Ben stands at the point, facing Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Defiance.

Ben and Kelly recording the rock's inscription at the five-point star Fort location overlooking the water.

Ben walking along the orange trail at the end of our hike-- the trees are frosted with snow and bent like a canopy.