I set out in the mid-afternoon on a partly sunny day.  The hike started with a half-mile walk down the road to the trailhead.

The trailhead is in the middle of those trees.  Here you can see the entrance, down a driveway where Hadley residents are allowed to park (if they get a permit, I believe):

That guardrail looking thing is actually a gate.

I had hiked in here and up to the Notch last winter, but had kind of haphazardly made my way up.  This time I tried to be a little more systematic in my choice of trails.  As it turned out, I did not head East enough, but focused on heading South (i.e. straight up) before turning East.  I did get where I wanted to go, but ended up having to cut through on some narrow mountain bike trails to get to the proper main trail.

Just before the trail emerged from the woods, I found these concrete vent things:

Or access hatches, or whatever they are.  Seeing them, I figured that I was close to the old military reservation.  Sure enough, only steps later I came to the fence:

I turned left and made my way along the fence to the military road, and then soon came to the Notch area on route 116.  There, I was able to head up Bare Mt. on the good old M-M trail (now heading mostly West up the side of the mountain).

The path up to that peak is steep, so it was tiring going up it, but I tried to keep up my momentum.  I reached the summit with time to spare, though; the total from house to mountaintop was about 53 minutes.

Of course the sky had clouded over while I climbed, so there’s no sunlight to speak of in my pictures from the top:

That picture above is looking back toward Hadley (I crossed into the town of Amherst on my way up).  Here is the view East to Mt Norwattuck:

I spent about 10 minutes up there, and then went back the way I came.  The sun came out as I was heading down – here is a picture of the Notch visitors’ center  when I got back down to it:

A lot of people were out recreating that day, apparently, as many of them had to park on the grass.

I went back around part of the old military base and then back down the main trail, this time following it all the way back to see exactly where I should have turned off to begin with (turns out that I should have taken the first left turn after entering the woods).  Just before getting back to the first trail, I passed this little reservoir:

I had passed that on the way up, but I was on the other side of it.  Soon enough I was back on the road and then home.

A number of animal species seem to live in or visit the place, as chronicled below.

Here’s the main lake/waterway in the refuge:

There was a boardwalk across the water at one point, and it had lots of small birds flying around it.  This one hung out nearby on the railing (almost as though it was expecting to be fed or something):

I’m not sure what variety that is, but there were some blue swallows around as well.  Here’s one sitting on one of the many birdhouses constructed in the refuge:

And I (amazingly) caught one of them in flight:

I spotted this creature in the mud at the end of the boardwalk:

A turtle spotted from the walking path:

Further along, there was an egret hanging out in the water:

But then, on the other side of the water, I startled 3 egrets that I hadn’t spotted sooner.  I managed to snap a picture as they flew away:

The best find of the day, however, was seeing someone lumbering along the path ahead:

This turtle was at least 14 inches long (not including the tail).

It was obviously scared, and my flash probably didn’t help (sorry!).

Not pictured, a deer that ran away too quickly for me to photograph it, and several mallard ducks and Canada geese (which one can see almost anywhere).  I’d highly recommend visiting the refuge in you’re in the Philly area, as admission is free, and it’s a lovely place, at least the portion of it I got to see (which was less than half).

I hiked a half-mile down the road to the trailhead I’ve used many times before.  Here’s what it looked like once I was a little way into the forest:

I soon took a different fork than the one I’ve taken in the past – one I’ve never followed before, though I had an idea where it would take me.

It had snowed the night before, so there was stuff still clinging to the trees:

As I started climbing up toward the ridge, I noticed a number of bike tracks in the snow (usually crossing the path I was on).  I marvel that people will mountain bike in such slippery conditions, but then I’ve never been the type to be very risky, so there are a lot of things people do that seem dangerous to me.

Here’s a shot of the path being more inclined:

I also noticed little tiny pine trees that had sprouted before winter:

There were a few forks in the trail, where I had to guess which way I should go.  I was sometimes able to sight by the top of the ridge, and sometimes looking at the sun helped.  Eventually, when I got near the steep part of the ridge and started moving laterally, I followed a wide bike track (which could have come from a motorized bike of some kind).

Eventually, I spotted a chain link fence, and knew that I had gotten to the point I was expecting.  This is an old military installation:

It’s no longer run by the government, but is owned by Amherst College.  I don’t know offhand what they use it for.  I had known of the place’s existence for some time, but had never laid eyes on it before.

I followed the fence around to the front gate:

And just as I emerged from the woods onto that access road, I saw these trucks parked nearby:

Much of the Holyoke Range is state parkland, and so it would make sense that they have a facility for fighting forest fires.  Here’s the facility proper, which is on the same road (called Military Road) as the college’s property:

From there, I headed up the road toward Rt. 116, which is the main road crossing the range.  It passes through The Notch, and the point where it goes through is about where Military Road intersects it.  I crossed the highway and headed over to the Notch Visitor Center, and from there started heading downhill on another trail that I’ve used many times before (which parallels Rt. 116).

That trail dumps one out near Atkins Farms market, where I took a look at the construction they’re doing.  It looks like they’re building an addition:

Here are some pictures taken from the same spot of the peaks on either side of the Notch.  This is Bare Mountain:

That’s the Eastern end of the portion of ridge I followed, and the military reservation is a bit downslope from it.

Here is Mt. Norwattuck:

From there, I walked along the road to home.  As I passed back by the first trailhead where I’d started, I noticed the sungoing down behind the ridge, and I’ll end this post on that note:

As with other one-way hikes, I brought my bike along on the back of the car, parked at the end of section 4, and then biked around to the beginning of section 3.

Section 3 begins on the Northern bank of the Westfield River at a point in West Springfield (but very close to the Westfield line).  The river flows behind a bunch of businesses on US-20, and I locked up my bike in a parking lot there, then took a very short path down to the river to get some pics.  Here’s the view upriver to the West:

And downriver to the East:

From there, I went back up and crossed Route 20, to begin the hike in earnest.  This involved a bit of walking on side streets until I got to the spot where the trail actually goes into the woods.

Once that happened, I spent nearly half a mile walking near a quarry, partially using its dirt access roads.  Then, the trail went off into deeper woods near a marshy area.  Just a little ways into those woods, I came across this structure:

It was very run-down, so I don’t think it gets used any more.  Who knows what it was used for in the past – maybe camping for hunters?  (there is a sportsman’s club of some kind near the quarry)

Just after that, I came across some large and weird fungal growths:

There’s nothing in the pictures for size reference, but each of these big ones was a good 8 inches in diameter.

The trail started skirting the edge of the marsh, so I started getting pestered by mosquitoes.  I also got a few more pictures:

That lower area wasn’t completely wetland, I think, because there’s a sort-of road there, which is probably for access to the power lines that ran overhead.

Lots more traipsing through woods followed that area, without much to photograph, but I did come across an open area where a tall tree had split:

Not sure what caused it.

Eventually, section 3 comes out of the woods by the Massachusetts Turnpike.  At that point, one has to walk West alongside the pike (and a bit downhill), until you come to an underpass for an old quarry road.  Apparently, a number of people have been here – and they’ve left their marks.  Here is the underpass before I went through:

And inside:

At the far end of the tunnel is a gate you have to climb through:

Here it is from the other side:

On the far side there are railroad tracks coming by at an angle, which also go under the Pike:

And a bunch more graffiti – these being focused on flowers!

Perhaps someone wanted to help Nature reassert itself on all this concrete in its midst.  

Once I crossed the train tracks, I was at the end of section 3.  I sat down and ate the lunch I’d brought.  It was a very hot day (temp in the 90′s) so I was trying to make my 2 bottles of water last.  Fortunately, I’d packed a nice, juicy peach, and didn’t need to drink so much with my food.  (a peach has never tasted so good)

Having eaten, I commenced section 4.  It differs from section 3 in being on higher ground, so even though it’s also very wooded, there are views to be seen.  Also, there are old communication towers:

Those are 2 different towers that I passed.  These are on a ridge that runs North-South, and which has a number of views to the West. Here’s a view of Barnes Airport in Westfield:

Last Fall, I had taken a picture of that airport from the other side, while biking past on Route 202.  At the time, I remember seeing the ridge and the towers beyond, and though of that this time.

I was also high enough up to have birds of prey flying around.  Here are 2 that passed almost directly over me:

Later in the section, I saw some views of the Western part of Holyoke:

Soon after that, I got a little lost.  The M-M trail is marked with white paint blazes on tree trunks (and occasionally on rocks).  There was a point where I found a double blaze, which indicates a change in trail direction, and then saw a blaze on a tree off to my right.  I headed off in that direction, and then had trouble locating another blaze or a well-traveled path.  I did find one old, faded blaze, but nothing beyond that.  I tied looking in several directions for 15 minutes or so (worrying about my water supply), until finally I made my way back to the double-blaze marker and looked further along that trail.  Sure enough the trail continued on what looked like a trail, and then made a slight turn to the left.  So, I got underway again.  After nearly another hour, I came down to US-202 in Holyoke, near the McLean Reservoir, where I had parked the car (in which I had extra water stashed).

Total hiking distance was about 8 miles.

I hadn’t had a chance to explore these trails much the last time I was on them, but I had time to go further this time, hiking uphill on something called the “College Trail.”  This leads up the North side of the Holyoke Range, joining other trails and eventually linking up with the Metacomet-Monadnock trail.  I didn’t make it quite that far up, as it was late in the afternoon and I needed to get back home before sundown.

I did see something I don’t think I’ve noticed on other local trails – a tree with graffiti carved in it:

The oldest carving seems to be from 1979, assuming that it was actually carved that year and not backdated by the carver.

In an unrelated event, I was in the grocery store the following day, and I saw an unusual sign in the frozen foods aisle.  This is something one hears a lot about in modern American political discourse, but I didn’t think it was available for purchase at one’s local supermarket:

There you have it.

Something that’s interesting about the park is the variety of different types of forest and other vegetation found there.  The first trail we hiked was through a fairly deciduous forest, with some tall pines (and wild blueberry bushes!), and it came out on a tidal bay, pictured here:

Here’s a slightly different part of the bay, seen at a different point on the trail:

I don’t know exactly what this thing is for, but I would guess it’s supposed to be visible from well out in the water:

The next trail was a boardwalk that went out onto a dune and barrier island:

Dune grass:

A sandpiper:

The estuary between dunes and shore:

After that, we took a short trail that went through a salt marsh.  Here’s a picture of the marsh grass:

According to one of the signs, some of what grows there is known as elephant grass, which can get as tall as 3 meters!

On the way back from that trail, near the parking area, I spotted this critter:

To give you an idea of its size, here it is in front of my foot:

Next we went on a trail through a cedar forest.  The cedars are traditionally considered sacred by the Mi’kmaq Nation, and the tribe has a wigwam near the trailhead for teaching visitors about their customs and culture:

Nothing was going on inside while we were there:

The trail itself certainly had a number of cedar trees, some of which had a strange-looking moss growing on them:

We went on one more trail after that, which supposedly contained an abandoned beaver lodge, but at the point where a sign talked about the lodge, it was completely hidden from view by bushes.  No pictures from that trail.

The total hiking distance was around 10 km, and we spent about 4.5 hours there (including a break for lunch).  It’s a lovely park, and I hope to go again sometime.  If you should ever find yourself there, though, bring some mosquito repellent, because there are great hordes of the insects there.

The hike started out in pretty Holland Glen, which is home to this waterfall:

From there the path crosses the stream and ascends along the bank for a while, then eventually heads away from the water and along a ridge.  Then it descends a ways and comes to an old dirt road, then gets away from that and follows an old stone wall for a while, before meeting up with a horse riding trail (some of which is described in the post from 2 years ago).

At one point, the horse and hiking trails are together, but the white blazes which mark the M-M Trail have been erased from that section, at the request of the land owner (though you can still hike it).  The trail comes to a junction where one can go straight or turn right, and the signs for the horse riders point to the right.  I thought I remembered that right was the direction to go for the M-M as well, so I went that way.

I remembered wrong.  The trail twisted around a while, and went over some rickety bridges made of logs and wood pallets, which were broken in spots.  I did fine crossing the bridges, but I can’t imagine that horses would have a very easy time with them.  Eventually, this trail dumped me out on a road.  If I had kept on the correct trail, I would have come out on a road as well, but a different one.  Gulf Road was what I wanted, and walking to a nearby intersection told me I’d come out on Gold Rd.  This was the intersection with Gulf, so I hiked West along Gulf to where I would have come out, and then kept going down the road to the new point where the trail continues into the woods (I had read the online trail updates this time).

Once I was back on the right trail, there wasn’t too much left of section 10.  I did come across an interesting sight before reaching the end of this section – a tree that grew in a circular path (perhaps helped by humans?):

I got to the end of that and took a bit of a rest, and then continued with section 11, which I’d never hiked before.

At first, section 11 ascends a hill known as Mt Lincoln.  At the top is a radio installation and old fire tower:

The guidebook mentions the great 360-degree view from the fire tower, but there are “No trespassing” signs on the tower, so I couldn’t go see for myself.  I did take a picture of a tall radio tower, though:

From here the path went down through more woods, eventially crossing the somewhat busy Amherst Road in Pelham.  On the far side of that crossing, the guidebook warned of poison ivy, which I noted and avoided.  The trail then went through a lot of pine forest, with little to no undergrowth.  There were just a lot of dead needles all over the ground, so the trail markings on trees were very useful, as there wasn’t always a clear path.

The trail came to a dirt road, and went along it a bit, before heading into more woods.  I saw a couple of people walking dogs on the road – besides them I had encountered 2 other hikers earlier, and those were the only people I saw the whole time (except when I crossed a road and cars went by).  Just after leaving that dirt road, I was in water supply land for the towns of Pelham and Amherst, and came to a stream just past a reservoir dam.  Here is the waterfall coming off the dam:

Best shot I could get, really.  The path followed this stream for a while after that.  Here’s another shot of the stream:

I think this might be Amethyst Brook, but I’m not positive.

Eventually, it came together with another brook, and the path started heading upstream along the other one.  I took a picture of this bit of falls/rapids:

and then found that I was at the end of the trail section just after that.  I passed a sign that labeled this area as the Buffam Falls conservation area, so I think that last picture may be Buffam Falls itself (alluded to in the guidebook).

Overall, I covered about 7.5 miles (maybe closer to 8 with some backtracking and my wrong turn).  Total hiking time: 4.25 hours.

This is a catching up post, which I intended to put up here months ago.  Back in October I went for a hike – my longest one to date.  I hiked all of section 8 and most of section 7 of the M-M Trail.  Total distance was about 10 miles, over lots of rising and falling terrain (including a few small mountains – or big hills by some standards).

I had done both of these sections before, but on separate occasions.  To start out, I drove to Skinner state park, and left the car near the Western end of section 7.  I had taken my bike with me, and I then biked home.  A bit later in the morning, I got a ride to the Eastern end of section 8, and started walking.  As we had recently moved into a house with a wood stove, and needed to start making fires in the near future, I collected birch bark as I went (it makes the best tinder).

Just past the first summit (Long Mountain), there is a nice vantage point looking ahead to the West.  Above is a picture of Mount Norwattuck seen from that vantage.  Here’s a closer view:

From here I descended a ways, and went through some low areas.   Eventually the land rises to a ridge, which has a lookout facing back East.  Here’s a picture of Long Mountain from there:

Just after this, one starts to ascend Norwattuck.  The top of it is the highest point in this hike.  It was a nice place from which to see the Fall colors.

The descent from Norwattuck is fairly long, and drops one off at the Notch visitors’ center.  I stopped there to eat lunch.  The center was closed, since it was after Columbus Day, so I couldn’t go in and refill on water.  Fortunately, I’d been careful, and had only drunk half my supply.

In the Notch, I crossed highway 116 and started section 7, which begins with a steep climb up Bare Mountain.  Here is a pic from the top of Bare, looking at the other side of Norwattuck:

Near the base of Norwattuck, just South of the visitors’ center, is a gravel quarry which you can see a bit of in the picture above.  You can also see a random person who is not me (the hair is a dead giveaway).

There is a lot of up and down climbing after Bare Mt., but not much in the way of views.  I was getting pretty close to Skinner Park before there were more vistas to look at.  From one of those, I took this shot of the Connecticut River, and farmland on the other side in Northampton:

Asthe trail enters Skinner, it goes down to the park’s access road, in Taylor’s Notch.  From this point, the trail continues up to the summit of Mt. Holyoke, which is where the road winds its way as well.  I was pretty tired out by the time I got to the road, though, so I walked downhill on the road, to the parking area at the bottom where I’d left the car.  My total time was about 6 hours, including the stop for lunch.  Hopefully more longer hikes will happen this year.

In mid-July I went on a solo hike through the Mount Tom Reservation, which I had done with a friend in 2007.  Since I was doing a one-way hike by myself, I had to park the car at one end of the trail and ride my bike back to the starting point.  Unfortunately, this involves riding up a steep hill on Mass. route 141, just before getting to the trail head.  It was quite a warm day, and I had to rest a few times on the way up the hill.  I also used up 20 to 25% of my water supply, and had to rest up a bit before starting to hike.

The trail does start out easy, and is almost completely level for the first 10-15 minutes.  Then it ascends and ascends and ascends.  I took the above picture at the summit, but didn’t need to take many, as I have plenty of the same view from last year.

Further along, when I was near the second summit (Whiting Peak), I noticed something that I’d missed the previous time: wild blueberries were growing among the rocky slopes.

I ate several handfuls of them as I worked my way along the cliffs.

The total hike along through the reservation is about 6 miles, but about 60% of the way through one descends to a park road and picnic area, and there is a drinking fountain where one can refill on water, which I did.  In the remaining part of the hike, I crossed Goat Peak and Mount Nonotuck, each of which had features that we’d not taken the time to see last year.

First, on Goat Peak, just off the path a little ways, there is a lookout tower:

I went up and took a look.  What’s great about this tower is that you have a 360-degree view.  All the vantage points on the trail just look to one side of the mountain range (Northwest).  Here are pix from the top of the tower, looking in various directions:

The path passes near, but not directly over, the summit of Nonotuck.  It does cross an old road, though, that you can follow up to the summit.  At the summit are the ruins of an old hotel, The Eyrie House, which burned down about a century ago.  Here I’m looking up at the ruins from below:

and here I explore a little bit:

Those are all the pictures from that hike, and nothing too eventful happened on my way down to the car.

This section is less mountainous than other sections I’ve done (like 6, 7, and 8), but still hillier than I thought it would be. There is a nice ridge that one climbs and hikes along for much of the path, and it has some good views.

This trail section starts in the Southwest part of Holyoke, and heads up to a point near the city’s border with the Town of Easthampton. Here are a couple of pics of the first good view I came across, looking off to the West at the Town of Southampton.

And a little further along the ridge I saw similar views:

Shortly after those vantage points, I ran across some small trees whose leaves looked as though they were a bit…infested.  I don’t know what might have done this to the leaves, or whether it’s harmful to the tree.  If anyone can tell me anything based on these pics, I’d love to hear it.

There were other views like the ones above – so much so that I didn’t take pictures.  I did get to one point that looked out Eastward toward the river and the town of South Hadley, and here is a picture of that:

This section of the trail goes past an old radio beacon tower, long out of use at this point.  I always think it’s cool to find abandoned human-made stuff in the middle of otherwise wilderness settings.  It’s kind of like visiting ruins, only they’re relatively recent ones.

Here are pics of the tower:

Soon after this point I got a bit lost.  The trail is marked with white blazes on trees and rocks, but part of the trail had been moved in the recent past, and they didn’t do a good job of marking the new path.  I could only find blazes that had been painted over, marking the old path which one wasn’t supposed to use any more.  This happened because a piece of the trail was on private land (many pieces are), and the owner had changed their mind about allowing hikers, or the land had been sold to someone who didn’t want to allow the use.  I eventually followed something that turned out not to be much of a path, but took me quickly downhill (and I almost stepped on a snake).  I knew there would be a road soon, and if I got to it quickly I could walk along it to find the correct path again.  I did get to the road without incident, and found where the path actually comes out and enters the woods again.  The rest of the trail section was pretty short at this point – only about a mile or so.  This piece was not very hilly, so I made quicker progress.

When I was almost to the end of the section, I saw 3 odd, puffy flowers growing alone in the middle of the woods.  I couldn’t identify them, but here are some pictures in case anyone else can:

That finished section 5, which is just over 5 miles.