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Published: September 18th 2018
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AT trail to Mt. Greylock
The trail up was mostly a pretty boring, rocky, muddy walk in the woods. Arrived at Bradley International airport in Windsor Locks, CT, on a Saturday, 8/18/18, around 3:15 PM and sat on the airplane for about 40 minutes in a thunder storm that, due to the lightning, kept the ground crew from guiding the plane to the gate. Finally deplaned, picked up our rental car, and drove to Williamstown, MA, home of Williams College, a rather exclusive, expensive, almost ivy league, small college. Checked into our motel, had dinner, and back to a relatively early bedtime. Up on Sunday for a hike to the top of Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts at 3,491 feet. Started at the AT crossing of Notch Rd. in the Mt. Greylock State Reservation and hiked across the summit of Mount Williams on the way to Mt. Greylock’s summit for a hike of about 3.5 miles with an elevation gain of around 1,200 ft. The summit has a 93 foot tall Veterans War Memorial Tower that has a circular stairway inside. Climbing the 89 steps to the top rewards you with stupendous views in all directions. There is also a hikers’ lodge with basic rooms as well as a high end restaurant. We hiked to the summit, but
On the climb to Mt Greylock
This portion of the AT up Mt Greylock is a ski trail in winter. a road allows for visitors to drive up and on this Sunday, lots did. Though we didn’t see too many fellow hikers on the way up, there were hundreds of people at Mt. Greylock’s summit. Since the actual trail up to Mt Greylock was pretty much a boring, steep in places, wet and muddy walk in the woods, we decided to just walk back down the road to our car. Better views along the road but hard on the knees and hips walking on the asphalt. Back at the car, we returned by way of the road through Mt. Greylock State Reservation and the long way back to Williamstown. This route took us through the middle of Williamstown and the Williams College campus. The campus is really pretty with lots of interesting older buildings along with what appeared to be a very ambitious building program. Lots of new construction going on in several places. Hopefully they don’t spoil the quaintness of the campus with a bunch of newer, more modern looking buildings, though it appeared that might be the case.
Monday morning we ate breakfast at the motel, checked out, and drove to a trailhead near the
Thunderbolt ski trail
Another of the more open section of the trail up Mt Greylock that is a ski trail in winter. MA, CT border, arriving a little after 10:15 AM. The trail we wanted to hike started at the Jug End trailhead just north of the Mount Everett State Reservation. Our intent was to hike about 4.5 miles with an elevation gain of 1,700 or so feet to the summit of Mount Everett. However the first part was a steep, tough, rock scramble that gained a little over 1,000 feet in about 1.5 miles. While there were several scenic viewpoints along that first section, the trail beyond was a fairly gradual up and down, pretty boring walk in the woods for the next couple of miles. At about mile 3.5 and another 500 or so feet in elevation gain, and thinking of how rough the descent along that last mile or so on the return was going to be, and the fact that it was getting late, and that it looked like it might rain, and my hips and knees were hurting already, and a few other well reasoned excuses, we decided to turn around and head back to the car. Made it slowly and carefully back down those last steep rocky spots to the car, getting back around 4:00 PM.
From Mt. Greylock.
Mt. Greylock is Massachusetts' highest point. So we ended up doing a total of only about 7 miles in about 5 hours of hiking time. While that is a lot longer than it usually takes us to hike that distance, considering those steep rocky trail sections, we were plenty happy to have finished this part of the AT no matter how long it took. Back in the car, we drove on the short 14 miles to our motel in Lakeville, CT. Dinner at a nice restaurant with so so food and back to the motel for an early night in.
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