Source Of The Hudson River

Last week I was doing a niggling research for a book project when a web search returned an interesting line from a Wikipedia entry on the Hudson River. It piqued my curiosity, going as information technology did confronting conventional wisdom. Wikipedia beingness Wikipedia I wasn't about to take it as gospel, but it provoked me to start digging around just for fun. Afterwards all, if one learns anything in research and the sciences it is that conventional wisdom or historical tradition are no sure bets.

In this case, both conventional wisdom and historical tradition say that Lake Tear of the Clouds, nestled between Mounts Marcy and Skylight in the Adirondack Loftier Peaks, is the source of the Hudson River. Thus has it been generally accustomed ever since Verplanck Colvin determined it to exist so, on his 2nd visit to Lake Tear in August of 1873. For generations of hikers Lake Tear has been a special destination, an upward trek to the ultimate source of one of America's greatest rivers. But is it?

I'll exist the first to admit that this question is little more than than idle speculation on my part. Even if opinions differ on the Hudson's source – and they exercise – there is no reason I can see to dethrone Lake Tear from its exalted condition. Nevertheless, if nosotros take the formally accustomed definition of a river'south source, in that location is stiff argument to be fabricated that Lake Tear isn't actually information technology.

It may be hard for the average person familiar with GPS and smart phones and Google Maps to believe that there could be any such doubtfulness left for a major feature in the Adirondacks. But for an centre-opening instance of how wrong that thinking is, doubters can accept a shot at looking upward Lake Tear's elevation. I started with that, since information technology seemed an important datum in my quest. Hours later I threw in the towel.

Your average cartographer can tell you far ameliorate than I why this can possibly be so hard (Teresa DeSantis where are you?) but it is due to a combination of factors.

For ane thing, information technology proves to be extremely difficult to dislodge historical measurements that have entered catechism. Many sources, even DEC'south spider web site, reference Lake Tear's elevation as 4,322 feet. This measurement was made by Colvin's vaunted assistant Mills Blake in 1875, using a rod and level calculation from Marcy's summit. Since then it has spread far and broad into Adirondack literature. It was an excellent measurement for the fourth dimension, arduously won, but it is inaccurate, off past as much as eight yards.

For another thing, varied topography tin can be quite hard to measure accurately, partly because the way it looks can be deceiving. Stand on the summit of Skylight on a clear mean solar day. Await toward Redfield and you will see tiny Moss Pond, equally lone and withered a location equally can be found in the Adirondacks. Look at its position every bit compared to Lake Tear and you'll swear information technology's higher in acme. I certainly did the get-go fourth dimension I saw it; when I got home I traced a map to see why it wasn't listed equally the Hudson's highest source. Colvin himself wasn't certain either. His first visit to Lake Tear in 1872, the famous "discovery" which is reprinted in the Adirondack Reader, was, despite Colvin's flowery rhetoric, non definitive for him. It took a second visit in 1873, during which he deliberately measured Lake Tear's height in comparison to Moss Pond, to convince him he had been correct. Moss Swimming, co-ordinate to his measurements, was about xiv feet lower.

Modern measurements near typically available on-line put Lake Tear's superlative at either four,293 or iv,295 feet. Which is correct? I take no idea, especially since yet other sources disagree. Query Lake Tear on the worldwide geographical site Geoview.info and it returns four,324 feet, almost in line with Colvin.

Having get obsessed with getting the definitive reply I turned to what I assumed would exist the definitive source: the USGS National Acme Dataset (NED). After trying to figure out how to query it for the better part of an hour, I found a usable front-end tool, plugged in a precise latitude and longitude and got an answer. Then I moved to some other signal on the lake and got a different respond. I ended upward with a variety of answers spanning several feet depending upon which function of Lake Tear'due south surface I chose. At present it is true that the effects of gravity, hydrogen bonds and the Earth's curvature would give minute variations in the surface top readings, only by fractions of an inch, not feet. Then this was discomfiting. Going as close the lake'southward center equally I could got me an elevation of four,319.084 anxiety. That must be nigh correct… so says me.

Why the variation? A professional person should reply that, but I practice know that the dataset uses measurements that are not every bit accurate as one might think, nor every bit consummate. Information then gets interpolated to fill up in the gaps, which is a useful mathematical estimating technique only hardly precise.

Ultimately I decided that a range for Lake Tear of between four,293 feet and 4,324 feet would have to do. That's quite a range. However it was pretty clear that the low cease of the range was likely to be most accurate and the low stop all the same puts Lake Tear higher than Moss Pond. And then it was not dethroned nevertheless.

However the real claiming to Lake Tear'southward status is not caught upward in the minutia of accurate elevations. The existent challenge lies with the definition of "source" in the start place. For whatever reason – perhaps the enthusiasm of finding lofty places, exemplified in the Adirondacks by Colvin – the definition of the Hudson's true source has been based upon its highest source. Lake Tear may be that (that's all the same in question, which nosotros'll get to in a moment) but the accustomed definition for the source of a river in geography is non the highest source. Information technology's the furthest source. For obvious reasons these two things often coincide, merely not always. In the instance of Lake Tear, the furthest source is not Lake Tear – it's the headwaters of the Opalescent River, high on the shoulder of Little Marcy. These headwaters are more than a mile farther past river course than Lake Tear.

If we accept the standard definition for a river's source, information technology seems nosotros have to become with the Opalescent headwaters, not Lake Tear: they're further. Just are they also higher? The Wikipedia entry says yes. My review of topographical maps say no. Just who knows where the headwaters first emerge every bit a streamlet? I've never bushwhacked in that location, nor have I uncovered whatsoever sort of recorded measurement that gives a precise location for the start of these headwaters. So equally far as I know that respond is undetermined (I'1000 sure it has been determined past someone, I but haven't been able to observe it). Consequently, I'm itching to get there myself. After all, if this is truly the source of the Hudson, it'southward worth a pilgrimage just as surely every bit is Lake Tear, albeit a nasty bushwhacking version of a pilgrimage.

A barely discernible streamlet situated in limb-scratching scrub far from whatsoever trail seems to me to make for a far less pleasing source for the Hudson than a piffling precious stone named Lake Tear of the Clouds. So I doubtable few will buy the idea that we should think any differently about it than we practise now. I'm good with that. But I love the idea that something as historic as the source the Empire Land'south greatest water course, the mighty Hudson River, tin can however be indeterminate in the twenty-first century. How marvelous that such a matter can however be hidden by the Adirondack Wilderness, in that location to telephone call explorers and those who wonder.

Photograph: heading toward Lake Tear of the Clouds from the Skylight trail