I do a fair amount of hiking. Rather than head to the gym, I go for a hike. Year round, even in the darkest days of winter I’ll strap on a head light and head out for a hike a couple times a week. One of my favorite local places to hike is Mt. Greylock. There are over 50 miles of trails on the mountain, and there is a variety of terrain and trail difficulty.
There are some good hikes linked here on the state website. On Sunday I hiked the Hopper Trail on the Williamstown side of the mountain. It’s a beautiful area, the Hopper is a designated national natural landmark, there are old growth trees, and the unique topography makes for great hiking. The Hopper forms a natural bowl on the west facing side of Greylock, the surrounding peaks of Stoney Ledge, and Mt Prospect make excellent hikes in themselves. I wrote a hike review some years ago on an excellent loop hike that starts in the Hopper, and goes to the summit of Greylock via the Money Brook and the Appalachian trails. A hard all day hike, but one of the best in area.
But Sunday I did a shorter hike up the Hopper Trail to the Sperry Road campround and back down. There are alternate routes that can make this a loop hike by walking down Sperry Road to Stoney Ledge, then down the Haley Farm trail. But I was short on time, so did an up and back. It had been raining, and the cloud cover was low, so some beautiful fog through the trees.