Orson Schofield (Old Mountain) Phelps (May 6, 1817 - April 14, 1905) was an early Adirondack guide from Keene Valley. Although he was not regarded as a highly skilled guide, his enthusiasm for nature and poetic descriptions of the mountain scenery endeared him to many tourists. [1] He became a local legend due to publicity from writers Charles Dudley Warner and E. R. Wallace, photographer Seneca Ray Stoddard, and others. Phelps named many of the Adirondack High Peaks, and cut the first trail up Mount Marcy.
Phelps was born on May 6, 1817, in Weathersfield, Vermont. [1] In the 1830s, he moved to the Adirondacks, where he worked at the Tahawus Iron Works. Following the death of David Henderson, he settled in nearby Keene Valley and married a local woman named Melinda Lamb. [1] He took up mountain climbing and became a professional guide to visitors. Phelps claimed to have climbed Mount Marcy, his favorite of the peaks, over a hundred times. [2] He gave several features in the Adirondacks their present names, including the Beckhorn on Dix Mountain [3] and Mount Haystack. [4] During an 1857 climb with Frederick S. Perkins, the pair named Mount Skylight, [5] Basin Mountain, [6] Saddleback Mountain, [7] and Gothics. [8] Phelps blazed the first trail to the summit of Mount Marcy in 1861 [9] and the first trail to the summit of Giant Mountain in 1866 with the assistance of his son Ed, who also worked as a guide. [10]
Phelps worked as a guide for several prominent tourists and surveyors. Among his associates were Verplanck Colvin, Horace Bushnell, Joseph Twichell, and Noah Porter. [11] Phelps was an avid reader of the New-York Tribune , to the point that he was nicknamed "Old Greeley", and intentionally sought out intellectual guests. [12] In 1864, Lucia Pychowska hired Phelps to guide her to Marcy, and published an account of her journey and Phelps in The Continental Monthly. [13] He achieved national fame from an 1874 profile by Seneca Ray Stoddard in his Adirondack guide book. [11] Stoddard described Phelps as an old man,
muffled up in an immense crop of long hair, and a beard that seemed to boil up out of his collar band; grizzly as the granite ledges he climbs, shaggy as the rough-barked cedar, but with a pleasant twinkle in his eye and an elasticity to his step equaled by few younger men, while he delivers his communications, his sage conclusions and whimsical oddities, in a cheery, cherripy, squeaky sort of tone—away up on the mountains as it were—an octave above the ordinary voice, suggestive of the warblings of an ancient chickadee. [11]
Additional profiles followed from writers Charles Dudley Warner and E. R. Wallace. [14] [15] As his fame increased and age advanced, Phelps became less willing to perform necessary guide work while on the trail. Many tourists who came to see the rustic old man reported disappointment and described him as lazy. [16] In his later years, he published articles in the Essex County Republican with subjects ranging from poetry to natural history. [17] Phelps died on April 14, 1905 in his Keene Valley home. Melinda moved to Hartford, Connecticut to live with their daughter and passed away in 1917. [18]
Phelps Mountain is named in his honor. [16] Two streams also bear his name:
Keene is a town in central Essex County, New York, United States. It includes the hamlets of Keene, Keene Valley, and St. Huberts, with a total population of 1,144 as of the 2020 census
Mount Marcy is the highest point in the U.S. state of New York, with an elevation of 5,343.1 feet (1,628.6 m). It is located in the town of Keene in Essex County. The mountain is in the heart of the High Peaks Wilderness Area in Adirondack Park. Like the surrounding Adirondack Mountains, Marcy was heavily affected by large glaciers during recent ice ages, which deposited boulders on the mountain slopes and carved valleys and depressions on the mountain. One such depression is today filled by Lake Tear of the Clouds, which is often cited as the highest source of the Hudson River. The majority of the mountain is covered by hardwood and spruce-fir forests, although the highest few hundred feet are above the tree line. The peak is dominated by rocky outcrops, lichens, and alpine plants. The mountain supports a diverse number of woodland mammals and birds.
The Adirondack High Peaks are a set of 46 mountain peaks in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state. They have been popular hiking destinations since the late 1920s, when the list of peaks was published in Russell Carson's book Peaks and Peoples of the Adirondacks. Those who have climbed all 46 High Peaks are eligible to join the Adirondack Forty-Sixers club.
The Adirondak Loj is a historic lodge in North Elba, Essex County, New York. It is near Lake Placid in the Adirondack Mountains. The current facility, located on the shore of Heart Lake, was built in 1927 and is owned and operated by ADK. The Loj property hosts the trailhead of the popular Van Hoevenberg Trail, which leads to Mount Marcy and Algonquin Peak, the two highest points in the state.
Algonquin Peak is a mountain in the MacIntyre Range of the Adirondacks in the U.S. state of New York. It is the second highest mountain in New York, with an elevation of 5,114 feet (1,559 m), and one of the 46 High Peaks in Adirondack Park. It is located in the town of North Elba in Essex County. The first recorded ascent of the mountain was made on August 8, 1837, by a party led by New York state geologist Ebenezer Emmons. It was originally named Mount McIntyre, after Archibald McIntyre, but this name was eventually applied to the entire range. Surveyor Verplanck Colvin added the name "Algonquin" in 1880. This name came from the peak reputedly being on the Algonquian side of a nearby informal boundary between the Algonquian and their Iroquois neighbors, although no such boundary existed in reality.
Mount Haystack is a mountain in the Great Range of the Adirondack Mountains of New York. With an elevation of 4,960 feet (1,510 m), it is the third highest mountain in New York and one of the 46 High Peaks in Adirondack Park. It is located in the town of Keene in Essex County. The first recorded ascent of the mountain was made by mountain guide Orson Schofield Phelps in 1849, accompanied by Almeron Oliver and George Etsy. Phelps gave the mountain its current name based on its appearance to a haystack, and later cut the first trail to the summit in 1873. The summit is an alpine zone above the treeline, which offers a view of nearby Mount Marcy and Panther Gorge.
Mount Skylight is a mountain in the Adirondacks in the U.S. state of New York. Skylight is the fourth highest peak in New York, with an elevation of 4,924 feet (1,501 m), and one of the 46 High Peaks in Adirondack Park. It is located in the town of Keene in Essex County. The mountain was given its name by artist Frederick S. Perkins and guide Orson Schofield Phelps in 1857, due to a rock formation on the peak resembling a window. Phelps would later make the first known ascent of the peak with surveyor Verplanck Colvin and two others on August 28, 1873.
Lake Tear of the Clouds is a small tarn located in the town of Keene, in Essex County, New York, United States, on the southwest slope of Mount Marcy, the state's highest point, in the Adirondack Mountains. It is the highest pond in the state at 4,293 feet (1,309 m). It is often cited as the highest source of the Hudson River, via Feldspar Brook, the Opalescent River and Calamity Brook.
Mount Colden is a mountain in the Adirondacks in the U.S. state of New York. It is the eleventh-highest peak in New York, with an elevation of 4,714 feet (1,437 m), and one of the 46 High Peaks in Adirondack Park. It is located in the town of Keene in Essex County. The peak is named after David C. Colden, an investor in the McIntyre Iron Works at Tahawus. The mountain is known for the Trap Dike on its west face, which forms a large crevice running up the mountain that can be clearly seen from Avalanche Lake. The summit of the mountain can be reached by two hiking trails, which are frequently combined to form a circuit through Avalanche Pass, or by climbing the Trap Dike. The summit is in an alpine tundra zone above the treeline, and offers views of surrounding mountains and lakes.
Mount Jo is a 2,832-foot-tall (863 m) mountain in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains of New York. It is in North Elba, New York on land owned by the Adirondack Mountain Club. The Adirondack Loj and Heart Lake are at the foot of Mount Jo. There are two trails that lead to its summit.
Gray Peak is a mountain located in the town of Keene in Essex County, New York. It is the seventh-highest of the Adirondack High Peaks, with an elevation of 4,840 feet (1,480 m), and is located in close proximity to Mount Marcy, the highest peak in New York. Gray Peak is southwest of Mount Marcy and southeast of Mount Colden. The first recorded ascent of the peak was made on September 16, 1872, by surveyor Verplanck Colvin and guide Bill Nye. It was named for Asa Gray by Colvin. Although the mountain is only 0.6 miles (0.97 km) from the summit of Marcy and lacked prominence desired by the Marshall brothers for inclusion in the High Peaks, it was added to the list to preserve the name.
Giant Mountain, also known as Giant of the Valley, is a mountain in the Adirondacks in the U.S. state of New York. It is the twelfth-highest peak in New York, with an elevation of 4,627 feet (1,410 m), and one of the 46 High Peaks in Adirondack Park. It is located in the Giant Mountain Wilderness Area, in the town of Keene in Essex County. The mountain is named for its towering appearance from the nearby Pleasant Valley to the east, which sits at a low elevation.
Gothics is a mountain in the Great Range of the Adirondacks in the U.S. state of New York. It is the tenth-highest peak in New York, with an elevation of 4,736 feet (1,444 m), and one of the 46 High Peaks in Adirondack Park. It is located in the town of Keene in Essex County. The mountain is named due to the resemblance of its three arched peaks and large rock slides to Gothic architecture. Although the name has been attributed to Orson Schofield Phelps and Frederick W. Perkins, who named several peaks during an 1857 ascent of Mount Marcy, other evidence shows the name Gothics in use at least as early as 1850. The earliest recorded ascent was made on October 11, 1875, by Verplanck Colvin, Roderick L. McKenzie, and Ed Phelps, although an unrecorded ascent was likely made earlier by James J. Storrow and Orlando Beede. The summit of Gothics is an alpine tundra zone, and on clear days views of 30 nearby peaks are available, as well as the Upper and Lower Ausable Lakes.
The High Peaks Wilderness Area is the largest wilderness area of the Forest Preserve in the U.S. state of New York. It is located in three counties and six towns in the Adirondack Park: Harrietstown in Franklin County, North Elba, Keene, North Hudson and Newcomb in Essex County and Long Lake in Hamilton County.
Basin Mountain is a mountain in the Great Range of the Adirondacks in the U.S. state of New York. It is the ninth-highest peak in New York, with an elevation of 4,827 feet (1,471 m), and one of the 46 High Peaks in Adirondack Park. It is located in the town of Keene in Essex County. The peak was named either for the basins formed between knobs on its slopes or the large basin to its southeast formed by it and the surrounding mountains. The name Basin was most likely coined by Orson Schofield Phelps and Frederick W. Perkins in 1857 during an ascent of Mount Marcy. The earliest appearance of the name in writing was made by surveyor Verplanck Colvin in 1873.
Big Slide Mountain is a mountain in the High Peaks Region of the Adirondack Park in New York. The mountain is the twenty-seventh highest peak in the High Peaks Region. The peak was named for the prominent steep cliff that rises to its summit. It is located in the High Peaks Wilderness Area.
Phelps Mountain is a mountain located in Essex County, New York. The mountain is named after Orson Schofield "Old Mountain" Phelps (1817–1905), who cut the first trail up Mount Marcy and named several of the Adirondack peaks. It is the 32nd highest peak in New York. Phelps Mountain is flanked to the southeast by Table Top Mountain.
Mount Redfield is a mountain located in Essex County, New York. The mountain is part of the Marcy Group of the Great Range of the Adirondack Mountains. Mount Redfield is flanked to the northwest by Cliff Mountain, and to the northeast by Mount Skylight.
Mount Marshall is a mountain in the MacIntyre Range of the Adirondacks in the U.S. state of New York. With an elevation of 4,360 feet (1,330 m), it is the 25th highest mountain in the Adirondacks and one of the 46 High Peaks in Adirondack Park. It is located in the town of Newcomb in Essex County, flanked to the northeast by Cold Brook Pass and Iroquois Peak. Originally named for Governor DeWitt Clinton, and then for mountain guide Herbert Clark, it was renamed for wilderness activist Bob Marshall after his death. The summit can be accessed by hikers on an unmarked trail.
The MacIntyre Mountains or MacIntyre Range is a range of mountains in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks, due west of Mount Marcy, in northeastern New York State. The range runs 8 miles (13 km) from southwest to northeast. Its sheer southwest slope makes up one side of Indian Pass, and a northeastern spur forms the cliffs of Avalanche Pass. From southwest to northeast, the range includes Mount Marshall, Iroquois Peak, Boundary Peak, Algonquin Peak, and Wright Peak. Algonquin is the second-highest peak in the Adirondacks.