Broad Brook is running high for September. We’re up here at the top of White Oak Road, just on the line between one state and another, and we’re taking time on a weekday morning, because this is a holiday for you.
Read articleThe Berkshires are rich in walks and hikes — gentle rambles in the hills and treks along the Appalachian Trail, and anything in between. Kayak on a mountain lake or get a taste of white water.
How to meet a mountain in the rain (August 25 newsletter)
You can see 90 miles from here on a clear day. We can see about 30 feet across the meadow. Up here on the summit of Mount Greylock at the end of a storm, we’re islanded in cloud.
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Meadows turn golden below three-mile ridge (August 18 newsletter)
The day is bright with a heat we rarely feel up here in the mountains, and the brook runs shallow here in the sand with Joe Pye weed on the banks …
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Late summer blooms under the boardwalk at Jackson Pond
The pines open into cat-tails, and the view widens into dense deep green, and I'm looking across the marsh and the water to Yokun Ridge.
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Exploring Cummington and the hilltowns in summer
It’s quiet up here. Sometimes I’ll come up to the ridge to get away for awhile, out the back roads … and find unexpected and creative places.
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Wing and a Prayer wildflowers glow in high summer
I’m up at Amy Pulley’s native plant nursery on the ridge in Cummington, and it’s transformed in July into a sea of meadow flowers …
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Walking up to the Dome Trail
It’s a hot, bright day up here on the back roads — late spring spilling into summer. I’ve climbed up Henderson Road until the land flattens out, and everywhere I walk I can hear the sound of a brook close by.
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Chasing wildflowers on the Dome and Agawon Trail (April 14 newsletter)
It’s the first time I’ve ever taken my shoes off in the woods to get a better grip. It’s the first time in New England I’ve ever wound up on a trail so steep I can imagine sliding straight off the mountain. …
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Can we stretch out for a moment in the sun? (March 10 newsletter)
The sun is coming out today for an hour or two. Where should we go for a walk? It’s one of those unexpected early spring days that jumps ahead for a flicker, like that afternoon in mud time in the Robert Frost poem …
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Looking for fall brightness on the back roads (Oct. 1 newsletter)
Color has come all at once this weekend. … The leaves let the light through, and here for a stretch the woods are rich and sunlit and almost too bright to look at. I can’t ever take it for granted.
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