Some are steeper than others, some even meander, but most cut quickly, and precipitously, to the chase. We climbed Mansfield on 9/11. In the morning, camped near Stowe—on the wrong side of the mountain—we heard jets flying overhead, presumably on the way to a commemoration. We climbed Mansfield on the same day as Kristen Kelleher, a Vermont native and the youngest woman to date to complete the Lower 48, which she finished that day. Her entourage brought up watermelon, patron fruit of highpointing, which they shared with us. Kristen went on to summit Denali and remains the youngest woman to complete all 50 states. It was a privilege to bask in her alpenglow.

When viewed from the valley, Mansfield's long summit ridge famously resembles the profile of a human face, hence the nicknames of its most prominent features: Forehead, Nose, Chin, and Adam’s Apple. The mountain was named after the former town of Mansfield, dissolved in the nineteenth century.

In art history, Mansfield is perhaps most notable for being the subject of numerous fine paintings, including several by Hudson River School artist Sanford R. Gifford, a founding trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Jerome B. Thompson, whose Belated Party illustrates the mountaineering tenet of the turnaround time. Among the corseted picnickers enjoying the sunset is a young man brandishing a pocketwatch (lower left), clearly concerned by the approach of darkness and the perilous descent to come. I would not relish the thought of hiking the Sunset Ridge Trail, which we took on the descent, while loosening my cravat and toting a picnic basket.