go hike a mountain

After discovering the road to Greylock’s summit was closed, we stopped at the headquarters for the park to ask for some advice about where to park overnight and where to access our trailhead for the next morning’s hike. The ranger here told us it would be best to try and find camping in the Pittsfield State Forest, which was a little ways south of Greylock, but would likely allow us to drive up to a site instead of hiking in. He even called Pittsfield before sending us off to make sure they had space available. We got some maps and even a suggestion for where we could watch a nice sunset.

The rangers at the Pittsfield State Forest put us in an overflow camping area which was still equipped with picnic tables and grills. We stopped to set up our tent and took off for the drive to the sunset overlook.

Shortly after we arrived, a huge van full of kids ranging 8 to 15 years old pulled up and dumped themselves out on the overlook. Jesse and I decided to walk down the road a bit to see if there was some other nice, quiet point to view the sunset from. Our walk brought us to a lake where a group of people were picnicing and throwing a toy into the water for their dog to retrieve. It was also buggy in this area, so we didn’t stay for long. We did happen to find another high point, though, and one we weren’t expecting!

We walked back up to the sunset lookout and the noisy group of kids had moved a little way down the landing. I felt especially bad for the couple that had been sitting there even before we arrived. Don’t get me wrong….I love kids. But I think the adults could have handled them a little better.

We waited about 20 minutes for the sun to set. There was a little bit of fogginess on the horizon that was giving the mountains in the distance a warm glow. The view was very nice and we both decided it was an excellent recommendation made by the park ranger at Greylock.

We left the lookout point and drove down a long, dark road back to our campsite. We used our new campstove for the first time, and Jesse tried dehydrated backpacker’s food for the first time. As always, a little lacking on flavor, but it still filled us up. I’ve learned it’s best to stay away from any of the foods that contain dehydrated meat, so we had Vegetable Pasta Parmesan. We cleaned up and went straight to the tent to get some good sleep for our hike the next morning. I made the mistake of bringing dehydrated ice cream in the tent - I didn’t realize it would make some many crumbs!! We finally got to sleep at about 10pm.

Now, although I slept through the whole thing because I happen to be the heavy sleeper, Jesse tells me he had to get up in the middle of the night to tell the group of noisy people to settle down at 1am! We didn’t realize they were the ones occupying the 3 large tents up the hill from us, or we probably would have found another spot further away. Please be considerate of fellow outdoorsmen and follow the state forest/national park rules: quiet hours 10pm-7am. We got up at 5:30am to leave Pittsfield State Forest and begin our trek up Greylock.