Monday, August 23, 2010

Sunset Hike on Mt. Greylock

I've just begun to eye the mountain of luggage and laundry that needs to be done upon moving back home last weekend, and I have about a million doctor's, dentist, hair, and other appointments. But this morning, I'm putting all that on hold and looking forward to catching up with everyone's blogs and sharing some pretty pictures we took last week on Mt. Greylock, the tallest peak in Massachusetts, on a sunset hike.

Growing up near the White Mountains in New Hampshire, I've become an avid lover of hiking. In high school, I would go twice a week during the summer, and sometimes on weekends. (If you're interested, some of the mountains I've hiked include Tuckerman Ravine, Mt. Washington (6,288'), Mt. Cardigan (3,121'), Mt. Moosilauke (4,802'), Mount Crawford (3,119'), The Flume (waterfall), Mount Major, Mount Tecumseh, and lots of others that I can't remember right now and would have to ask Big Relationship, who was my hiking-buddy.)

Unfortunately, once I left for college my free time to hike decreased dramatically. But I was not going to begin my senior year at Williams having never hiked Mt. Greylock!

L., Zeb and I packed up a bag and took a short-ish hike to the summit of Mt. Greylock, as we didn't get going until almost 5:30 and we were racing the 7:50 sunset.


First, we took the Money Brook Trail to the falls. Unfortunately, we've had the driest summer I can ever remember, so there wasn't much water to speak of.

The sun was setting fast, so we rushed to the top to make it in time to enjoy the sunset.


The Lodge on top of the summit. The top of Mt. Greylock doesn't even feel like Massachusetts to me. It has a very Pacific Northwest feel to it.



Now you can see why Williamstown is in the "Purple Valley." At night, all the mountains and the sky surrounding Williams become this deep shade of purple.



When the sky became more purple and blue than red and orange and the moon was finally out, we left the freezing winds on top of the summit (don't worry, we had driven a car up before the hike--we didn't want to hike down in the dark!) and got some warm, yummy food at Moonlight Diner, Williamstown's resident 1950s style restaurant. My only complaint was that we didn't have enough time to hike! I'm looking forward to doing a difficult, whole-day hike some Saturday this fall when we're back at Williams.

3 comments:

  1. wow! stunning! that lodge looks like a dream come true.

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  2. I love hiking. Those pictures are beautiful-that looks like so much fun. You've motivated me to dust off my hiking shoes and go for a hike next weekend. :-)

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  3. It was so beautiful! I can't wait to maybe try to go up for sunrise!

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