Getting "Lost" on Greylock on 7/12

Saturday was an awesome day of running! I got up at 4am and headed to Williamstown, MA to run up and over the highest peak in MA… Mt Greylock. I arrived at the trailhead at 7am and was on the trail by 7:12. It was desolate, humid and cool as I headed up the “hopper.” The hopper is a steep 3-walled valley between 3 mountains and the Money Brook trail heads up the crotch between two of them. The canopy over the trail was extremely thick and I could barely see the sky above. The rain from the previous day left the trail muddy and slick with no sunlight to evaporate it.. it also made the insects all the more vicious. When I came to Money Brook Falls I wanted to take a few pictures so I stopped quickly, took pictures (see web site) and headed on up the trail. It was so incredibly steep that I was scrambling up on all fours and slipping in the dirt and mud… until I realized that the reason it was so steep was that I got off the trail about ¼ mile back and was running up a path created by rain runoff! After doubling back it was a much better run!

I continued on up the trail and finally hit the summit of Greylock’s sister mountain Mt Williams at 2,915 feet. I had climbed 1,800 feet in that first 5 miles and wanted to take a short break to look out of the lookout area and take a picture or two (check out my web site) when I headed back out from the lookout area to the trail I discovered a problem. I had not noticed this but the trail down and trail up came in nearly parallel to one another and I was not sure which one I came up on. I thought I knew and headed out on the other trail, but the trail looked slightly familiar and I was heading downhill. Keep in mind that with the thick canopy, and heavy brush around the trails everything looked VERY similar. I stopped and looked at my map but it was too high a level to show the inflection. I pulled out my compass but the trail was heading east-west instead of north-south as the overall trail heads so that did not help me either. I went back to the Mt Williams summit and oriented my map and when that was not decisive given the detail on the map, I decided to head back on the other trail and look for tracks from my shoes since they make a very distinctive mark. I did not think I found any so I decided to head out on this trail for a bit… it headed downhill too. I stopped one more time to look at the map, use my compass, orient the map and think again. I had now used my Scouting experience numerous times… STOP (stop, think, observe and plan). I knew that I was not lost, taking the trail one way would get me back to my car, taking it the other way would get me up to the summit. I one more time I checked everything and decided I was on the right trail. I needed to head south to get to the summit, and since I was still going more west I decided to run with my compass and keep checking for a bit. As I ran, noticed that my direction was steadily turning south and then heading back uphill… I was back on track after about 15 minutes of wandering!

It was a steady rise to Greylock’s summit 2 miles away. It was very quiet up there since the summit road is closed for the year for a complete overhaul and all summit house operations were shut down so only hikers were around. I took some pictures and headed down the trail back to my car. I took the Overlook trail since it was longer and since it must mean that there was a really cool scenic overlook on it… NOT! The trail was heavily overgrown, treacherously rocky and those rocks were covered with slime from rain, condensation and no sunlight. I took a spill very shortly after getting onto the trail when I hit a big rock that was slippery as ice. I got up and continued running at the same pace descending the hill. I again stepped on a rock in the shadows that was very slippery and fell, got back up and continued on at my same pace. A few minutes later, once again I hit some rocks that were very slippery and I took a bad fall, scraping both legs, bruising my hip and butt and putting a nice long cut and bruise on my arm to boot. It was then that I smartened up and decided to gingerly descend until I got to drier, more stable trails.

As I descended, I again found myself in a spot which was poorly marked. I came out of the Hopper Trail onto an abandoned campground and saw sign for the hopper trail point down a road so I headed in that direction. 100 yards down the road I observed a sign for the Hopper Trail pointing back up the road! I decided that I must have missed the turn off from the road and headed back up the road. It took me a frustrating 20 minutes to find that darned turnoff and it was way down into the campgrounds. Once past there, it was a fast, easy run back to my car. The trail was steep but it was wide with great footing and only smaller rocks so it saved my ankles! In hind sight, the better option would have been to go up the Hopper trail and then come back down the Money Brook trail since the hopper trail was wide, a steady incline and more conducive to running.

I really liked the run today… my “directional challenges” slowed my pace down but the hard work getting to the summit was a good workout. The hardest part was the 3-hour drive home right afterwards!