Mt. Greylock Adventure

I hope everyone had a great Monday so far and found ways to stay cool.

I had a fantastic 2-day adventure in the Berkshires, which I wanted to recap in this post. Not quite related to weather/climate, but it feels appropriate to document the trip on this blog.

I left my house at around 4:00 p.m. yesterday to drive up to Lanesborough, MA, where I booked a campsite at Mt. Greylock Campsite Park. I absolutely love camping, and it was nice to have a beautiful site at the top of a hill along Route 7, which cuts through the bucolic Berkshires.

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my book, and when you're camping alone without a book, things can get pretty boring. Luckily, I had my phone and the road atlas in my car to keep me (somewhat) occupied. I was treated with some nice cotton candy skies last night.

I woke up at around 5:45 this morning to the sound of birds chirping and an air temperature of around 65 °F. I quickly packed up my tent and prepped for the day's first adventure, a bike ride to the summit of Mt. Greylock. 

Mt. Greylock is the highest peak in Massachusetts, with a summit elevation of 3,491 feet. The mountain is a part of the Taconic Mountains in Berkshire County. The summit is actually in the town of Adams, but it is accessible from Williamstown, Lanesborough, Cheshire, and North Adams (I may be missing a few). There is a large network of trails weaving around the mountain with the most famous one being the Appalachian Trail, which runs from Georgia to Maine. Additionally, an auto road that runs to the summit is open during the summer months. That was the road that I set out to tackle on my bike this morning.

I was the only one in the visitor center parking lot at 6:45 this morning.

I biked the 8 miles to the top before the temperatures had gotten to hot, and was treated with spectacular, yet hazy, views of the town of North Adams to the north.

There were very few other people at the summit before 8:00 a.m., though I did meet a man that began his hike in Georgia in early March and was planning to end in Maine. I swiftly descended the ~ 2,000 feet to the visitor center parking lot at the mountain's base, and prepared for the second adventure of the day: a Greylock summit hike with my parents.

(State of Massachusetts)

We took the "Summit Hike" trail shown on the map above, which begins part way up the auto road. It was fun to spend some time with my parents, and we made it to the summit much quicker than expected.

After spending about 15 minutes on the summit and fueling and hydrating, we decided to extend our hike a bit, so we traveled north on the Appalachian trail for about 20 minutes. We turned around and hiked back to the Campground parking lot, returning to our cars at about 12:30 p.m. Luckily, we got our hike in early enough to avoid the oppressive heat that was present throughout the region today. 

This was a fantastic adventure for me! Two summits in one day, plus some time spent with my parents in the great outdoors. I capped it off with a dip in Greenwater Pond in West Becket, MA to cool off. This was my third time at Mt. Greylock, and I definitely plan to return!