On the border of Williamstown and Vermont, trails cross a high meadow and 180 acres of forests and fields and wetlands, with a wide view across the valley. Most of it gives flat and gentle pathways for walking, and in summer the meadow grows high with milkweed and wildflowers. (You cn find trail heads off of Mason Street in Williamstown and Benedict Road in Pownal, Vt.)

The Trustees of Reservations cares for the land today. They say it holds a range of “natural habitats and rich ecology: It’s home to bears, coyotes, bobcats, fox and deer.” The wetlands shelter frogs and salamanders, and the woods are home to small mammals and reptiles. The meadow’s mix of flowers and grasses, including aster, little bluestem, and fringed gentian, dran in many kinds of butterflies.

The writer and naturalist Grace Greylock Niles, known for her book Bog-Trotting for Orchids, lived here and wrote about her hill-and-daling expeditions through the high bogs, and the spring woodlands, looking for rare orchises and lady’s slippers.

BTW Berkshires
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