I had been saving Mt. Greylock because it seemed a good choice for a family trip in the Berkshire Mountains complete with a bed and breakfast and a trip to Tanglewood for an afternoon of music. It turned out to be a great choice. The hike was beautiful, through a wooded forest with an elevation gain of nearly 2,300 feet that Debby, Chris, Mollie and I were all able to do together.
After a delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes at our bed and breakfast, Blackinton Manor in North Adams, we drove to the trailhead for what we thought was the Thunderbolt Trail. Serendipity intervened as we found the road to the Thunderbolt Trail under construction and parked instead at a trailhead for the Bellow's Pipe Trail. I found later that we hiked a portion of the same trail that Henry David Thoreau had hiked on Greylock in 1844 and recorded in "A Year on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers", in the Chapter Tuesday,
"I began in the afternoon to ascend the mountain, whose summit is three thousand six hundred feet above the level of the sea, and was seven or eight miles distant by the path. My route lay up a long and spacious valley called the Bellows, because the winds rush up or down it with violence in storms, sloping up to the very clouds between the principal range and a lower mountain. There were a few farms scattered along at different elevations, each commanding a fine prospect of the mountains to the north, and a stream ran down the middle of the valley on which near the head there was a mill. It seemed a road for the pilgrim to enter upon who would climb to the gates of heaven. Now I crossed a hay-field, and now over the brook on a slight bridge, still gradually ascending all the while with a sort of awe, and filled with indefinite expectations as to what kind of inhabitants and what kind of nature I should come to at last. It now seemed some advantage that the earth was uneven, for one could not imagine a more noble position for a farm-house than this vale afforded, farther from or nearer to its head, from a glen-like seclusion overlooking the country at a great elevation between these two mountain walls."
While he slightly inflated the mountain's elevation, and the surrounding farms are long gone, Thoreau's prose reminds me to ponder my surroundings as I hike rather than simply seek to bag a peak.
The slope of our route was mercifully, less steep than the Thunderbolt Trail and Debby was more than capable of making the grade with the rest of us, in spite of her doubts.
It took about three hours, much of the hike through a beautiful forest and some bucolic meadows, before we reached the summit of Mt Greylock. It was a lovely day to enjoy the view and have a burger at the Bascom Lodge atop the mountain. Groups of hikers sunned themselves on the upper slope as a gang of William's College Freshman enjoyed their day of bonding on their orientation hike.
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| The monument was dedicated in 1931 to those fallen in the world war |
Back to earth we descended just in time for a shower/swim, and to dress for dinner, in time to make our reservation at MASS MoCA's Gramercy Bistro The food included Coq au Vin, Whole fish with some creative sauces, mussels, sea scallops, crab cakes and grilled summer vegetables. It was delicious, and we needed the fortification to sustain our energy for a Brazilian Dance Party, right next door.
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| MASS MoCA |
It was almost impossible, even for the poorest dancer, to be self conscious as Liliana Arau'jo of Brooklyn based Nation Beat taught us all to strut like kings and queens and step like native Brazilians, before the creative blending of New Orleans, Brazil and Folk music began. Listen to their new single Growing Stone Chris, Mollie, Debby and I danced the evening away before melting into our mattresses back at the Blackinton Manor.
The next morning brought another nourishing breakfast and a return to MASS MoCA to see the space and take in the art.
We wrapped up our weekend with the American Songbook, reclining on the lawn at Tanglewood and relaxing to music played by Michael Feinstein and the Boston Pops. A wonderful, celebratory weekend with my family as I marked the conclusion of the Northeastern US Highpoints! A very different highpoint trip than I'm used to, but a welcome break from the harder work needed to summit those big beautiful western mountains.
