So two weeks ago, I was working on a blog post. I do that quite often these days, since there are three blog posts a week to write.
And I was looking for a way to refer to not only the many puzzles available to solvers these days, but how they would rank in terms of importance and popularity. I settled on the following:
Crosswords sit comfortably at the apex of the proverbial puzzle mountain, atop worthy also-rans like word searches, cryptograms, and Sudoku.
And when I went looking for images to use for “puzzle mountain” to illustrate my point, I was flabbergasted to discover that there is, in fact, a Puzzle Mountain.
[The view from atop Puzzle Mountain. Image courtesy of Guthook Hikes.]
I immediately wanted to know more. Where was it? How tall is it? And how did it come to be called Puzzle Mountain in the first place?
Some questions were easier to answer than others.
Oxford County, Maine, is the home of Puzzle Mountain, part of the Mahoosuc Range. It’s a 3.2 mile climb to the peak of the mountain, and it takes approximately three and a half hours to reach the summit, assuming you’re not misled by the false peak known as Little Puzzle Mountain.
The mountain is part of the popular Grafton Loop Trail, which is included in several top lists of the best and most scenic hikes in Maine.
According to Maine Trail Finder, “The Grafton Loop Trail leaves the parking lot and ascends to the open summit of Puzzle Mountain after passing several ledges with fine views of the Bear River Valley, the Mahoosuc Range and the Presidential Range beyond.”
[The start of the climb to the top of Puzzle Mountain. Image courtesy of 1 Happy Hiker.]
But why is it called Puzzle Mountain? I still had no idea.
I had to search high and low across the Internet for this information, since most sites were focused on either the hiking aspects of the mountain or some of the local stores. Apparently, the strawberry rhubarb pie at the Puzzle Mountain Bakery is to die for.
I eventually discovered the answer to my question in Steve Pinkham’s book The Mountains of Maine: Intriguing Stories Behind Their Names, which detailed the curious anecdotes and history behind the names of many Maine landmarks.
As the story goes, according to Pinkham:
An old man from Bethel was once out hunting on the mountain and became hopelessly lost. In descending a ledge, he dropped his ax over the lip to a shelf below to avoid any accident while he climbed down. Upon reaching the spot, he was amazed to see the head of the ax apparently wedged into solid rock. Taking a closer look, he found that the hatchet was embedded in a soft rock that he quickly figured to be plumbago or graphite.
Cutting out a sample, he carried it home, dreaming of money he could make by selling the mineral to pencil manufacturers. The story goes that he spent the rest of his life trying unsuccessfully to relocate that deposit and the mountain was subsequently named Puzzle Mountain because he never did find where the deposits were located.
And that, fellow puzzlers, is the story of Puzzle Mountain. Weird. You’d think there was some connection between the graphite and the pencils so many puzzlers use to solve puzzles! That’s where I thought the story was going, anyway.
Perhaps, one day, a member of the PuzzleNation team will scale the heights of the mountain and proudly place the PuzzleNation flag at the summit.
Until then… it’s still fun to think about, isn’t it?
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