Hike 10/19/2019: Mount Greylock



This was my second overnight hike ever. I went with the same crew: Adam and Matt. Fortunately (maybe unfortunately for the sake of the story) nothing super eventful really happened. Everything went according to plan. The weather was great. We did not have to survive below freezing conditions. We did not really lose the trail. In a sense this is great news. It is a sign that we planned far better. We had a better idea of what to expect and what to bring. Overall, I had a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to tackling a much more difficult route.

We started our adventure on the north-western side of the mountain. We parked at the Haley Farm Trailhead. There were a lot of happy cows making a lot of noise. You can follow the trails we took using the trailmap We parked at Haley Farm Trailhead. This gave us access to the Money Brook Trail. We follow this trail heading north and east. Passing under Mount Prospect and Mount Williams. The trail is marked very well with blue trail markers and signs. So it’s hard to go wrong. It was also only a very gradual elevation gain. Which made covering a long distance quite easy. We crossed a few paved roads that allow car access to the top. We saw a few motorcycle gangs riding the twisties up and down from the summit. It looked very fun.

Eventually, we intersected the Appalachian Trial and we followed it south until we hit a crossroads around 4pm. At that point we had a decision to make:

We chose option 2, seeing as how we would need to cross the summit the next day and because it was approaching sunset anyways.

When we got to the shelter, we encountered a lovely young woman named Laura. She was a very experienced hiker who had hiked the AT once before. She gave us a lot of advice and even let us use her stove top to hook up to heat up some of our food faster. She had a setup outside of the shelter with a sleeping bag, a mosquito cover, and a tarp to cover the whole setup. The three of us huddled together in the shelter, reminiscent of our hike in the Whites.

It was quite the restful night and we were filled with energy the next day. We made it to the summit around 10:30 am. There was a war memorial and a lodge. A part of me wished it was snowing. Purely for the aesthetic.

After an invigorating cup of hot chocolate, we descended down the south side of the mountain. We followed the trail towards Sperry Road. We walked through Sperry campground, past Stony Ledge and onto Haley Farm Trail until we could hear the cows calling our name.

Here’s an image and video dump of the trip.