Date Hiked: 07/21/07

Conditions: Fine. Some erosion in some areas, and a little wet from recent rains, but fine.

Special Required Equipment: Poles helpful. Traction-poor footwear contributed to slips on wet trails. Water, sunblock, bug spray, open mind.

Comments: First time up this hill, and stumbled oddly onto a Henry David Thoreau-inspired guided hike (http://www.mass.gov/dcr/events/mgry7-21.pdf). Very strange bit of synchronicity and it was, after a bit of uncertainty, most welcome. In the end, I still believe he (HDT) was just trying to get the world to take a day off and the world was trying to get him to get a job (and probably cut his hair while he was at it). Cool lecture, with actual cellar holes and relevant reading from "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers." If this is what I can expect from hikes in the Berkshires, well, I guess I'll keep coming.

On the way down, the DCR Ranger with us was most helpful in describing local natural history, including schist, glacial lakes, local pink quartzite, bunch-berry, stinging nettles -- and their co-growing cure-- the relative lack of poison ivy, and what changes to the forest there have been between Thoreau's 1844 visit and the present (mostly, the trees have returned).

The trail is very gradual and mild, even after it ascends the final humps near the "Thunderbolt" (old ski) trail. The top is mostly open, with the road and visitor center now empty and under repair. The monument is also closed for needed maintenance, but was opened especially for us by our DCR co-guide. There is also a panoramic name chart for looking out to the east. It was hazy, but we could make out Monadnock & Wachusett to the east and the Catskills to the west, as well as the usual suspects in Vermont and the ADKs (to about 30 or 40 miles, I'd guess).

Great day, strange serendipity.

Submitted by:--M.