Mountain Mornings
My favorite time to travel through the mountains is between the dark of night and peaking light of morning. Catching porcupines shuffling sleepily to bed, and sparrows singing their first songs of the day. Rambling, solitary, through the woods at this early hour allows a window into the private world of the wild. Sharing the wooden hills of South Western Massachusetts with its native creatures gave me a moment to pause and appreciate the soft moments that come around just once in a while.
The Berkshires of western Massachusetts are not a dramatic mountain range like those of the West, or even the hills of other ranges in the Appalachians. What makes the Berks unique is that they are host to countless cabins that sit melancholy in meadows until they are filled with the joy and laughter of a family visiting for the weekend. The Berks seem to fold love and adventure of the classic American vacation into their gentler slopes. As I drove through the twisting roads to my trailhead I could not help imagine the summer afternoons of grilling and firefly catching.
