The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [217]
But that evening it was the six foot and two inches tall Pinchot who seemed the stronger—at least at first. “I had the honor,” Pinchot wrote in his autobiography, “of knocking the future President of the United States off of his very solid pins.” Fellow Boone and Crocketters had been saying that the patrician Pinchot was, surprisingly, a “man’s man,” who could “outride and outshoot” anybody. Roosevelt put the Yalie’s reputation to the test and came out with a favorable impression.24
Roosevelt, not to be defeated, shrugging off the boxing loss, immediately challenged Pinchot to a wrestling match, anxious to show off some pinning techniques. This time Roosevelt easily won the match. The score was now even at 1 = 1. Shrewdly Pinchot decided that it was best to safeguard the tie; a split decision, he reckoned, was the best outcome in dealing with a family friend with such a large ego and such a competitive disposition. Sometime during the punches and take-downs, Roosevelt decided to trust Pinchot; he liked the Old Boy’s gameness, the way he didn’t refuse a challenge, his aristocratic mien, and his abiding sense of noblesse oblige. And, more important, Pinchot wholeheartedly shared Roosevelt’s ideals regarding scientific forestry. Pinchot was also impetuous, and the governor liked impetuousness in a man. Patience, Roosevelt believed, was a bent card that the dim and selfish played. Grinnell remained Roosevelt’s muse on wildlife protection issues, but the irrepressible Pinchot, Roosevelt’s junior by seven years, now was effectively anointed his guru on forest policy. Roosevelt and Pinchot formed an alliance that would have a profound effect on the modern conservation movement. Together, they would promote America’s forests with firm confidence and zeal.
Ironically, even though Pinchot advocated forest conservation, he was seen as a sellout by thoroughgoing preservationist friends of Roosevelt, such as John Muir and William Temple Hornaday. The fact that Pinchot wanted to allow regulated tree harvesting in the Western Reserves was nearly anathema to them. Governor Roosevelt knew about this, but he thought the put-downs unfair. After all, Pinchot’s family was about to donate $150,000 for Yale University to start a forestry school and was starting a forestry camp at Grey Towers to teach a new generation wise use policy.25 “Gifford Pinchot is the man to whom the nation owes most for what has been accomplished as regards the preservation of the natural resources of our country,” Roosevelt later said. “He led, and indeed during its most vital period embodied, the fight for the preservation through use of our forests.”26
Pinchot embraced Governor Roosevelt’s notion that New York should have one superintendant who could replace the five-man Fisheries, Game, and Forest Commission.* Roosevelt would promote this concept, saying that a “system of forestry” needed to develop “along scientific principles.”27 Roosevelt also implored the chief of the U.S. Forestry Division to help him preserve the Adirondacks as completely as Yellowstone and Yosemite. The east coast population centers, he believed, needed wilderness parks to help revive city dwellers’ spent spirits. As Pinchot and La Farge headed to the Adirondacks to help establish a land management plan, setting up camp at Lake Colden, located midway up the mountain, they had the governor on their side. Roosevelt, in fact, gave them carte blanche to use his name as expedient. Roosevelt was starting to understand that Pinchot wasn’t merely a forester but a revelation.
What really sealed the deal between Roosevelt and Pinchot was their shared admiration of 5,344-foot Mount Marcy, the tallest peak in New York. More than thirty years after Roosevelt first saw its summit, Mount Marcy (named in 1837 after Governor William Learned Marcy) still had magnetic appeal to him. (Sometimes Mount Marcy was called Tahawus, Cloudsplitter, or High Peak of Essex by locals.28) Compared with four larger eastern summits—Mount Mitchell, Mount Washington, Clingman Dome, and Mount Rogers