Bob Marshall In The Adirondacks: Writings of a Peak Bagger, Pond Hopper and Wilderness Preservationist

Story by John Coleman
Photos published in Bob Marshall In The Adirondacks

Bob Marshall is perhaps one of the most influential preservationists in history. Lucky for us, he had a love affair with the Adirondacks. It was a love nurtured in his childhood trips from Manhattan to his family camp, Knollwood, on Lower Saranac Lake, New York.

Marshall, his brother George, and their longtime guide and family friend, Herb Clark, were the first to climb all the Adirondack peaks over 4,000 feet – a feat that today would be recognized with membership in the 46er's club.

Bob Marshall in the Adirondacks, edited by Phil Brown, is a collection of nearly 40 writings which include: Journal accounts of high peaks hikes, academic papers written both in junior high and as an undergraduate student at State University of New York's school of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) as well as poems, portraits, and novel excerpts by Marshall and his brother George.

These writings, many of which are previously unpublished, illustrate Marshall 's love, respect, and incessant need for the outdoors and his apparent mission to preserve wilderness and the wildness ideal for all time.

The book is divided into five parts, the first of which is "Peak-Bagger," which consists of many journal accounts of Marshall's hikes as well as a list of all 46 peaks rated by their level of beauty (by Marshall's high standards of beauty). The second is "Pond-Hopper," which consists of Marshall's account of the summer of 1922 when, as a forestry student at SUNY ESF, he visited 94 ponds and 10 summits. The third is "Preservationist," which consists of Marshall's scholarly journals regarding silviculture (the study and science of the forest), the plight of the wilderness, and zoning policies, which journals still consider standard nearly 70 years after his death. The fourth division of the book is "Portrait Artist," which consists of Marshall's portraits of the people who influenced him such as his friend and guide, Herb Clark, the Adirondack explorer and perhaps the first conservationists ever, Mills Blake, and even Albert Einstein, with whom Marshall had the chance to spend an "Adirondack evening" with. The fifth division is "Novelist," which contains excerpts from a novel Marshall wrote entitled An Island In Oblivion in which characters are set in the Adirondacks.

The many journal accounts of Marshall's hikes and long walks with his brother and guide give the reader a factual account of the routes taken by the hikers, which are documented on the many maps within the book. Marshall, even as a teen, writes in a style that is informative, but mildly entertaining. Marshall often recounts songs sung by he, his brother and guide as well as the meals they'd prepared, falls they had taken, and sights they'd seen. Marshall's great knowledge of, and passion for, the outdoors, even at a young age, is evident throughout the book.

Contrary to what one might think, the book has little value as a guide to hikes. The names of the locations have since become outdated and renamed or were given affectionate names by Marshall.

The journals recount the many challenges presented by weather, bushwhacking, hunger, thirst, bugs, and the many steep ascents and descents the hikers encountered on their quest to reach summits. Marshall's attention to detail and careful documentation of distances and elapsed time gives the writing credibility, but also makes for extremely boring reading. What the writing lacks in excitement, however, is made up for in its historical value and its contribution to the rest of the book in its ability to help the reader understand Marshall's background and what influences him to pursue a career in forestry.

The high point of the book is in the section "Preservationist." In it, an article written by Marshall and published by Scientific Monthly in 1930, "The Problem of the Wilderness," offers a powerful, persuading, and, most importantly, timeless argument for the value of preserving wilderness.

Every ounce of Marshall's passion for nature pours out in the article:

"Anyone," Marshall writes, "who has stood upon a lofty summit and gazed over an inchoate tangle of deep canyons and cragged mountains, of sunlit lakelets and black expanses of forest, has become aware of a certain giddy sensation that there are no distance, no measures, simply unrelated matter rising and falling without any analogy to the banal geometry of breadth, and height. A fourth dimension of immensity is added which makes the location of some dim elevation outlined against the sunset as incommensurable to the figures of the topographer as life itself is to the quantitative table of elements which the analytic chemist proclaims to constitute vitality."

Bob Marshall In the Adirondacks is too chopped up into subheads to be a book that a reader can enjoy from start to finish. Instead, the book would be of greater value as a coffee table book for the Adirondack aficionado. One could read one or two of Marshall's excerpts at a time and soak in Marshall's passion and knowledge of nature, the idea of the people's God-given right to enjoy "untrammeled" wilderness and the escape from society. Taking in too much at once is, at times, monotonous and frankly boring.

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Editor: Phil Brown
Publisher: The Adirondack Council
Printed in Canada
334 pages (Hardcover)
2006

About Bob Marshall (1901-1939)

After private schooling in Manhattan, Marshall attended the State University of New York's school of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF), in Syracuse, New York, during which he spent his sophomore year at the Ranger School in Wanakena, New York, located in the Western Adirondack Park.

After graduating he got his master's from the Harvard Forest in 1925 and his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University Laboratory of Plant Physiology in 1930. His career then took him to Washington where his passion for nature and words had more bearing. Here, he sat as the Directory of the Forestry Division of the U.S. Office of Indian Affairs from 1933-7, and as the chief of the Division of Recreation and Lands within the U.S. Forest Service from 1937 until his death in 1939.

In his lifetime, Marshall fought to preserve millions of acres of wilderness areas not only in the Adirondacks, but all over the United States. In 1935, he organized the Wilderness Society, which is one of the nation's leading wilderness groups.

The country's largest wilderness area, The Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, located in Montana, is named in his honor. The book also notes an effort by the non-profit Adirondack Council to establish a 409,000-acre Bob Marshall Great Wilderness within the western borders of the Adirondack Park.

"The preservation of a few samples of undeveloped territory is one of the most clamant issues before us today. Just a few years more of hesitation and the only trace of that wilderness which has exerted such a fundamental influence in molding American character will lie in the musty pages of pioneer books and the mumbled memories of tottering antiquarians. To avoid this catastrophe demands immediate action." - Bob Marshall (1901-1939)