Mt. Greylock and Mt. Williams

Meg and I got up at 5:30AM on Saturday May 3rd, 2014 and started our trek out to Mt. Greylock in Western Massachusetts. The trip took us close to 3 hours to get there. When we arrived the parking lot was inside of a farm with cows and that nice farm smell. With our full packs of 40-50lbs a piece we started our trek on the Hopper trail. Our goal was to take the Hopper trail up to Mt. Greylock, then hop on the AT to Mt. Williams and then loop back on the Money Brook trail.

The hike was good, very peaceful walking through the farm and the road to get to the trail head, at the trail head we saw a volunteer working on the trail, said our hellos and started up the hopper trail. The trail was wet, and muddy at times as you might expect in the first weekend of May, but we carefully navigated through it. The first mile was a good warm up, and then the Ascent started. At mile one we were at 1320 feet and by mile four we were at the summit, but had a steady climb of 2000 feet topping Mt. Greylock at 3490 ft.

About a mile before the Summit, we came up to a pond which had a small cabin on it and ran right along side the path, The water was remarkably clear as it was only maybe 3 feet deep, but you could see everything in there from the ground to the frogs. The amazing part was the sound of the peepers which were in mating season and were making noises that almost sounded like ducks or geese. The noise was very loud, but very interesting to experience.

At the top of Mt Greylock there is a giant war memorial which had a globe at the top of it which looked awesome. Behind that, was a great observation spot where you look down on a nearby town and there was a great view of the rest of the mountains in Western Mass. There was also a great guide there that identified all of the mountains. Meg and I were pleased that the mountains that we were looking at several of them we have already climbed.

We decided as it was around noon, and we were at the top of the mountain and that the AMC Hut was not open yet, to test out our new gear and fire up the jetboil and have the delicious pre-dried meals of chili mac and beef stew. Both meals left us feeling full, warm and happy. After a lengthy break we started on the AT. to Mt. Williams. The rest of the trip we were descending mostly. After about 3 miles we made it to Mt. Williams, which was a very small summit, but we were amazed at how quiet it all was up there. Mt. Williams was protected from the wind unlike Greylock so we had a very nice break just taking in the sites and the peace and quiet.

The remainder of the Hike we stayed on the AT until we got to a shelter area and we split off onto the Money brook trail. We met some women at the Shelter who were also training like us. They are doing the Longtrail in a couple of months and have hiked here before. Money Brook trail was full of waterfalls and we followed the brook almost the entire way. It was great to hear the running water the entire time. The trail ended in a meadow which opened up and was very pretty as it still had the stream running through it.

Once we got back to the car, both feeling tired it was fantastic to change out of the boots, remove our packs and stretch a bit.

The burgers and beer we had on the way back to Boston were well earned!