Mount Greylock State Reservation

I had put in for a vacation day for July 13th as we thought we might go to one of our local establishments to see an acquaintance of Mrs perform.  He is a guitarist and singer.  We also had loose plans with our friends from New Hampshire to maybe come down and join us.  Those plans fell through.  I was antsy to do something with my day off so I kicked around the idea of doing a camping and hiking trip somewhere nearby, maybe the Berkshires in western Mass and I think I even mentioned Mt Greylock in a conversation with Mrs.

Mrs started researching options in the western Mass area, and found Mount Greylock State Reservation on the web.  Even better she found there was a campground there, and as a bonus the campground was hike in only.  A number of years ago this used to be a drive in car camping campground, so the gravel roads, ranger station, privies are all still in good shape. There is even a giant hand pump well system for potable water.

Mrs made a reservation for us to in one of the campsites for Sunday, July 14 into Monday.  We planned to hike in and use my old tent for shelter.  We also planned to bring Luna with us.  She is small and very easy to deal with.

I called our house sitter to see if she could stay for the night and care for the other two dogs, the cats and the horse.  Unfortunately she informed me that she now had a full time job and would not be able to do it.  Hmmmm..  Could there be a plan B?

Mrs contacted a friend of ours who happens to care for Harry's father, and works for his breeder to see if she would be willing to take Harry and Bella for the weekend and explained our dilemma.  She checked on a few things and was more than happy to help us out.  We then contacted our neighbor across the street to see if she would be willing to feed and water the horse and chickens.  She gladly agreed.  Our plan for the cats was a clean cat box, two big bowls of food, bowls of water, and a bathroom sink full of water just in case.  We seemed to be set up for success.

On Saturday we went to our nearest Eastern Mountain Sports where we purchased an awesome Osprey Kestrel 48 backpack for her and a JetBoil cook set , some fuel  for it, and a few other small items for Mrs.  Good to go.

We packed our packs that night and tossed together some food.  This is probably the area we were lacking and could have used a little more planning, but now we know.

Sunday morning we got up, loaded the dogs and our gear.  After feeding Guapo and headed off Cape.  Harry and Bella would be staying about 2 hours away.  We dropped them at around 9:30 and then headed west to the Berkshires.  I'll admit to a major twinge of guilt leaving them behind, especially Harry.

I'm not sure what time we arrived at the parking area and trailhead, but it was certainly before noon.  We changed into our hiking clothes, donned our packs and headed onto the trail.

The hike in to Sperry Campground was fairly easy, under two miles.  Mrs left a note for a firewood delivery at the ranger station as instructed.  I figured we could get wood from the woods as well, but it's nice to have some reliable, hopefully dry logs as well.

Solar powered (for the vents) composting toilets at the campground.

We located site #5 and set up our camp.  There was a couple picnic tables at the site as well, so that was handy.  There were bear boxes at each site so it made hanging a bear bag unnecessary and convenient.  The site was off the road a bit down a grassy path. Two picnic tables, a fire pit and plenty of room for the tent.  We set up camp, then hiked up to a nice overlook.

On the way back we picked up some wood along the road and then poked around the campground some more.  We located the water source, which is a large hand pump well.  We saw a sign for a trail leading to a waterfall that was under a mile, so we decided to hike there, too.  It was a pretty good hike in and once there we found very little water cascading.  Still, nice and we both wet our heads with the cool water.  We stayed here for a little while then headed back to camp for supper and to get a fire going.

Falls in the woods.

Mrs and Luna at the falls.

Once back at the camp, Luna did a lot of this.  She was very good off lead and did not wander far.  I took a walk around in the woods and through various empty campsites and got quite a good bit of dead and downed wood.  We were not sure if the ranger would be paying us a visit with the wood we requested, so I wanted to get a good bit before dark.

We got a nice fire going in no time, though things were a bit wet.  It was a little warm for a fire, but we like having one.  I heated up some water on the JetBoil and we ate our soups.  We definitely could have used a little bit more food, especially for Mrs, but we did our best with what we had.  I think if we had a little more time to plan or had some actual backpacking dehydrated meals on hand and ready to go it would have been a different story.

The ranger came around in his truck and did bring some wood.  It was most of a leftover bundle from another site that he gave to us, so we had some bonus wood for free.  He was very nice and we chatted for a bit before he moved on to visit with the only other campers in the campground.  It was wonderfully quiet and just before dark we heard barred owls calling.

There are bear boxes at each site which is great.  No need to have to find  suitable spot to hang a bear bag to keep the food safe.

Our plan for the next day was to hike up to the summit of Greylock.  We didn't want to haul all of our gear, but we needed to be out of our campsite by 11 am, so we decided to hike back down to the car, leave most of our gear and lighten my pack to just the essentials.

Packed up and heading out to the car on the campground trail.

 Small pond near the summit along The Appalachian Trail.

 Verterans' War Memorial at the summit of Mt Greylock.

Bascom Lodge, also at the summit.

View from Bascom Lodge.

This was a wonderful, spontaneous trip (for us, anyway!).  We need to do more of it, and I think we will.  We have not spent much time in western Massachusetts.  Greylock may have changed that for us.  It's fairly close, easy to get to and beautiful.