Fortune is said to favor the brave.  It certainly favored the writer of this article when an opportunity was offered for a two days’ trip with the Appalachian Mountain Club up Mounts Kearsarge South and Cardigan in New Hampshire.  A few words in regard to this club.  Well known as it has come to be, the objects of its existence are scarcely understood by the majority, even, of Bostonians.

“Oh,” said one, referring to this very trip.  “They go off somewhere, climb a mountain, have a jolly time and then come home.  It’s about the same thing over and over.”

Very true.  But they do more.  According to the by-laws, “the objects of the club are to explore the mountains of New England and adjacent regions, both for scientific and artistic purposes, and in general to cultivate an interest in geographical studies.”

In addition they do much to open up new mountain resorts to the public and render the old ones more attractive.  They construct new and accurate maps.  They not only collect scattered scientific information of all kinds but study to make it available.  All this they do by combining effort, comparing notes and interchanging ideas.  They hold monthly meetings in Boston, publish a magazine, own quite a library, and have established a reputation second to no similar organization in the country.  The club was established in 1876, and the membership to-day of over six hundred is ample proof of its popularity.  That their researches are really valuable is demonstrated by the fact that Professor Hitchcock in his geological works quotes them frequently in support of his own theories.

On the seventeenth of June some twenty members of the Appalachian Mountain Club gathered at an early hour in the Lowell station at Boston.  The party was unusually small for one of their popular excursions.  The majority were young and strong and looked amply fitted for mountain climbing.  Yet grave men were there whose silver hair told that they had already climbed life’s rounded hill and saw its westering sun; but elderly people are never old, so long as they remain young in heart and spirits, and pleasant anticipation beamed from the faces of all as the train steamed away toward the north, and the two days’ outing was fairly begun.

The morning was cloudy and a possible rain storm threatened the plans of the Appalachians.  But the clerk of the weather-bureau evidently understood the necessity for favorable conditions and issued them accordingly.  Before we had reached Canaan, N.H., the clouds had broken away and the afternoon promised to be perfect.  We had with us a Harvard professor, a topographical surveyor, an amateur photographer, a Concord philosopher and the champion walker of the club.  Apropos of some of the feats of the latter a story was told of the man who walked forty miles in two hours.  This was putting the Appalachians entirely in the shade, and the story called forth incredulous remarks.  Investigation proved, however, that the Appalachian was not outdone, for the hero of the canard accomplished his feat only by taking a Champlain steamer at Burlington, Vt., and walking deck the entire distance to Rouse’s Point!