Saturday, January 28, 2012

Mt. Grace



Weather forecasters must use magic eight balls for their predictions. Last night when I checked the weather it said snow/rain, so I reluctantly rejected the idea of spending a precious free weekend-day out hiking. But, when I woke up this morning, the sun was shining and the air was warm. I got J up with a bowl of strawberry yogurt and a latte, and without too much delay we were on our way to Warwick to hike Mt. Grace.

On the way we passed through the town of Orange, which despite the cool name (after the Duke of Orange, apparently) is a pretty dilapidated old mill town, which is unfortunate because they have gorgeous brick mill building lining the fittingly named Millers River. Not to mention this awesomely creative street names...:

Mt. Grace State Park itself was beautiful. There's a great network of well-marked trails and the northern-hardwood and hemlock forest there seemed older and more wild than the forests down here in Leverett. Mt. Grace is one of the tallest mountains in Massachusetts, and definitely the tallest one here in the Pioneer valley, at 1,617 feet. And best of all, it's another one of those CCC mountains with awesome firetowers on the summit, affording gorgeous 360 views! 






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