Friday, January 25, 2008
Last week I was searching Amazon for books about the Berkshires and came across Berkshire Trails for Walking and Ski Touring by Whit Griswold. Published in 1979, it was long out of print and used copies were fairly cheap, so I ordered one and it arrived today.
This is a pretty cool little book, clearly meant to be stowed in a pocket or pack for reference while out on the trails. It starts out with sections on the history, geology, and natural history of the area, and then goes on to describe a number of walking and XC ski tours in the various parks in the Berkshires. I probably have descriptions of most of the trails in other books - since I used to work in the Berkshires and I still go there frequently for running and riding, I've got at least half a dozen guides from the last 10-15 years that cover trails in the area - but it's still really neat to see them in this book. In part that may be because I get a sense of history from this guide - it's a connection to almost 30 years ago, and people who were out wandering around in an area I love - and in part it's no doubt because I've been on roughly half of the trails described - in fact, the walk in Monroe State Forest is essentially the course for the Monroe Dunbar Brook trail race that the WMAC puts on in October!
There are several sites listed in here that I'm fairly certain I don't have anywhere else (and which I'm fairly certain still exist, since I've passed signs for them!) and I even found the answer to a question that popped up as recently as last Saturday - the purpose of strange looking structure, a small building with two large rusted metal cones attached on the side, along the road to Savoy Mountain State Forest. It turns out it's the top of the central ventilation shaft (explaining why the road to the park is named Central Shaft Road) of the Hoosac Tunnel, a 4.75 mile long railroad tunnel under the mountains.
picture courtesy of www.hoosactunnel.net
The Hoosac Tunnel was built from 1851 to 1875. At the time of its completion it was the 2nd longest tunnel in the world, and it remains the longest tunnel in the eastern US. It cost roughly $21 million to build, and 195 workers died during construction. The tunnel is still used by freight trains, but from what I've seen on-line that hasn't stopped quite a few folks from exploring it. For more info, try Marc Howes' hoosactunnel.net and Jerry Kelley's Hoosac Tunnel site. I have to admit, after spending an hour today researching the tunnel I now have a renewed interest in visiting the East and West Portals (again, both relatively close to places I've visited for trail races.)
And reading parts of this book (and visiting websites to research questions prompted by it!) has definitely got me eager to get outdoors... despite the fact that I hope to be doing a snowshoe race tomorrow morning, I'll have to get out in the woods for a short run this afternoon.
JMH
