Mount Everett

Mount Everett is the highest peak in the south Taconic Mountains, rising about 2,000 feet above its eastern footings in Sheffield, Mass. Its summit area is notable for expansive vistas and an unusual dwarf forest of pitch pine and oak. The Appalachian Trail traverses Mount Everett, which prior to the 20th century was called "Dome of the Taconics." Reaching 2,602 feet (793 meters) above sea level, Everett dominates much local scenery of the Housatonic Valley.

Not to be confused with Mount Everest.

Mount Everett
View from Bears Den Road, Sheffield, MA
Highest point
Elevation2,602 ft (793 m)
Prominence1,663 ft (507 m)
Parent peak42° 06' 07"N, 73° 25' 57"W
Coordinates42°06′07″N 73°25′57″W
Geography
LocationSouthwest Berkshire County, Massachusetts
Parent rangeTaconic Mountains
Geology
Age of rockOrdovician
Mountain typeThrust fault; metamorphic rock
Climbing
Easiest routeMount Everett Road and Appalachian Trail

Geography

Mount Everett helps divide the watersheds of the Hudson and Housatonic rivers. Its eastern slopes share a larger escarpment with Mount Race and Bear Mountain plus several related summits. This escarpment rises from 700 feet in Sheffield's Housatonic Valley at a mean angle of about 20 degrees (a 36% grade). Everett's more gentle, western slopes begin in a valley occupied by the township of Mount Washington, where elevations average about 1,700 feet.[1]

A seasonal auto road approaching from the west climbs past Guilder Pond and continues nearly to Everett's summit, but its upper reaches have been long closed to automobiles. The summit area features an open, dwarf forest of pitch pine and scrub oak.[2][3] A 40-foot fire tower was on the summit from 1970 until 2003. Earlier towers stood there beginning in 1915—all called "Mount Washington Fire Tower."[4] About halfway down the eastern slopes are Race Brook Falls with a source near the gap between Mount Everett and Mount Race.

Much of the mountain is land administered by Mount Washington State Forest and the contiguous Mount Everett State Reservation,[5] which had about 10,000 visitors annually as of a 2005 official estimate.[6] Significant other portions of Everett's slopes are privately held.[7]

Geology

Mount Everett is part of the much larger Taconic Allochthon, a rock structure that migrated from about 25 miles to the east and arriving at its present location via thrust faulting.[8][9] More narrowly, rocks of the upper mountain are within the "Everett Formation," a term first used by geologist E-An Zen in mapping and studying the allochthon during the 1960s. Zen modified the 1893 term "Everett Schist" coined by William Herbert Hobbs "in order to include rocks of different metamorphic grades."[10] The formation extends intermittently throughout the highlands of the southern Taconics.[11] Everett Formation rocks are principally olive-gray to green, blue-quartz pebble metagraywacke and quartzite of Ordovician and older age.[12][13][14] Everett's lower slopes are part of the Stockbridge Formation, which is generally limestone.[15]

Historical nomenclature

"Taconic Mountain" and Hitchcock's proposal

A 1777 map by the cartographer Claude J. Sauthier labeled the peak "Tacan Mountain."[16] Separately, the once-famed Yale College President Timothy Dwight IV wrote of his 1781 ascent of "Taughanuk Mountain" in a (posthumously published) 1823 travel memoir.[17][18]

The name "Mount Everett" was proposed in 1841 by Edward Hitchcock as chief of the state Geological Survey, after Edward Everett, governor of Massachusetts (1836-1840).[19] Hitchcock, who later became president of Amherst College, didn't reference "Taconic Mountain" or any variant in his proposal.[20] Hitchcock wrote that the mountain was "often confounded" with the local town of Mount Washington, Mass., where Hitchcock said it was known as Bald Mountain or Ball Mountain, "but in neighboring towns, I believe this name is rarely given."

"Dome of the Taconics"

By the late 19th century, "there [had] long been a protest against adopting the name that Prof. Hitchcock gave to the summit," according to Clark W. Bryan's 1886 tourist guide titled Book of the Berkshires. Bryan asserted that "the united public sentiment of the region" favored "Dome of the Taconics."[21]

Yet in 1897, the United States Board on Geographic Names which determines federal usage, accepted "Mount Everett," citing published sources. It listed a half-dozen alternate names as of 1897: Bald Dome, Bald Peak, Dome Peak, Mount Washington, Takonnack Mountain and Taughanuk Mountain.[22]

Bryan, a prolific poet, daily newspaper publisher and founder of Good Housekeeping magazine, died by suicide in 1899.[23] Books concerning the region published subsequently in 1899, 1907 and 1939 continued to reference "Dome of the Taconics," but also preferred the official term "Mount Everett."[24][25][26]

A 1987 USGS map (republished until 1997) labeled the entire mountain "Mount Everett" and its immediate summit area "Bald Peak."[27] Earlier and later USGS maps for the area don't reference "Bald Peak" on Mount Everett.[28] A wholly separate "Bald Peak" at 588 meters' elevation is also labeled on USGS maps a few miles to the southwest of Everett.

References
  1. see "topography" chapter in article "On the Geological Structure of the Mount Washington Mass of the Taconic Range" by William Herbert Hobbs, 1893 Journal of Geology (Hobbs spent two seasons on the South Taconic massif at work on this monograph, perhaps his earliest scientific field work. Hobbs later gained modest prominence as a polar geologist and would-be social critic.
  2. "History and dynamics of a ridgetop pitch pine community: Mount Everett, Massachusetts | FRAMES". www.frames.gov. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  3. "Resource management plan". mass.gov. March 2006. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  4. "National Historic Lookout Register" Registry number US 431, MA 2
  5. "Mt. Wa. State Forest trail map" https://www.mass.gov/doc/mt-washington-state-forest-trail-map/download
  6. "Mount Everett State Reservation Summit Resources Mgmt Plan" DCR 2006 page 2, executive summary
  7. "CalTopo - Backcountry Mapping Evolved". caltopo.com. Retrieved September 6, 2023.
  8. Book Review: Potter, D. B. (December 1, 1968). "Time and space relationships of the Taconic allochthon and autochthon". American Journal of Science. 266 (10): 995–996. Bibcode:1968AmJS..266..995P. doi:10.2475/ajs.266.10.995. ISSN 0002-9599.
  9. USGS Mineral Resources web page
  10. "Geology of the Bashbish Quadrangle"
  11. "Geologic map of the Bashbish Falls quadrangle, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York Author(s): Zen, E-an, and Hartshorn, J.H. 1966
  12. USGS Geology by State page
  13. "Long-term Monitoring Mount Washington (Mass.) Forest Reserve" page 9
  14. Page 38 "Taconic Stratigraphic Names: Definitions and Synonymies" by E-an Zen, 1964 U Geological Survey Bulletin 1174
  15. "Geologic map of the Bashbish Falls quadrangle, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York Author(s): Zen, E-an, and Hartshorn, J.H. 1966
  16. Map of New York and New Jersey, From topographical observations by Claude Joseph Sauthier Engraved and published by Matthew Albert Lotter 1777 File:Albany County 1777.png
  17. Travels in New-England and New-York. Timothy Dwight.
  18. page 79, Forest and Craig, Laura and Guy Waterman, 1989, AMC
  19. Final Report on the Geology of Massachusetts 1841, page 238
  20. "Final report on the geology of Massachusetts". 1841.
  21. see page 150, "The book of Berkshire, describing and illustrating its hills and homes". 1886. Bryan's similar 1882 book called "Hills and Homes of the Berkshires" terms the mountain "Dome of the Taghkanics" without reference to "Mount Everett" or Hitchcock.
  22. "Work Card" 1897, US Board of Geog. Names Archived copy Archived July 20, 2022, at the Wayback Machine
  23. "Clark W. Bryan's Suicide". Waterbury Evening Democrat. Waterbury, Connecticut. January 24, 1899. p. 6.
  24. Adams, John Coleman (1899). Nature Studies in Berkshire. G. P. Putnam's sons.
  25. Abbott, Katharine Mixer (1907). Old Paths and Legends of the New England Border: Connecticut, Deerfield, Berkshire. G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 978-0-7222-4977-2.
  26. The Berkshire Hills. Boston Public Library. New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company. 1939.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  27. "Ashley Falls, Mass.-Conn.-NY 1:25 000 scale metric topographic map" Geological Survey 1987
  28. See USGS online historical map collection for "Bash Bish Falls" and "Ashley Falls," etc. and current edition.
  • "History and Dynamics of a Ridgetop Pitch Pine Community, Mount Everett, Massachusetts." Harvard Forest Paper No. 25
  • "The Taconic Controversy: What Forces Make a Range?" Appalachia: Vol. 73: No. 1 Article 5; available at Dartmouth EDU digital commons:
  • "Massachusetts Forest Reserve Long Term Monitoring Mount Washington Forest Reserve" 2009
  • "On the Geological Structure of the Mount Washington Mass of the Taconic Range" Hobbs, Wm, 1893
  • A credible but uncertain claim that Henry David Thoreau visited Mount Everett
  • "Book of the Berkshires" 1886, by Clark W. Bryan (see segment Dome of the Taconics page 147-150)
  • Interactive map showing conserved properties (user must adjust scale and turn on the correct "layers" for public and private lands)
  • "Mount Washington State Forest Trail Map" (includes Everett Reservation)
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