Mt. Greylock State Reservation

Overall Rating (1 to 10) : 8.5

Location: Lanesborough, Mass.

We arrived at Mt. Greylock just after sunset on a Friday night. There was still a ranger at the campground entrance, luckily, and we had no problem getting a site (the staff at Greylock were very helpful and knowledgeable). Since it was getting dark we weren't too picky about our site, but it turned out to be pretty nice by the light of day. On Saturday we drove further down the road (toward the overlook) and saw some really nice walk-in sites.

The camping, as well as the park as a whole, is very secluded. It's well worth the extra drive to come to this out-of-the-way spot. It felt like a national park, complete with lodges at both the base and summit of the mountain. The Appalachian trail goes through the park. There's an access road to the top, where there's this strange lighthouse (really) that they decided to put 200 miles from any ocean. You can climb a spiral staircase to the top of the lighthouse.

The camping is primitive (meaning there aren't facilities with running water, just composting toilets). You can get water at the summit or at the base lodge. All the sites were wooded and fairly secluded. The first night our neighbors (a large group) were noisy, but the second night all was quiet.

This is a fantastic place for hiking. There are multiple trails leading right out of the campground, with varied terrain and difficulty. We did a circular hike up to the summit and back down to the campground, and later drove down the access road and hiked out to see the site of a plane crash. We also walked a lengthy nature trail that started from the base lodge (What kind of moss is that? Running moss.) and checked out the little museum in the lodge.