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Peaked MountainMonson, MAOctober 26th, 2014 |
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Peaked Mountain sits at the Connecticut border in the pastoral town of Monson, MA. It is a special place sporting two excellent vistas of
rolling hills, accessible with just a relatively short climb. Here we're arriving at the first of them, the west-facing Valley View
vista.
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And the views were awesome, with just enough fall foliage left to color the landscape.
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Our whole group gathers with the west view behind us.
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Despite the cumulus clouds, it turned out to be a surprisingly clear day. We could easily see the City of Springfield about 14 miles northwest. It sits just above the red foreground tree in the left photo. 
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As we approach the east-facing lookout a short distance up the trail, we get a nice view of a pond just to our south by
the Connecticut border.
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Natalie, Morgan and Hannah enjoy the sweeping view.
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Morgan, Natalie and Lulu walk down to the ledge and snap more pictures of all the fall colors.
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The 180 degree panorama was gorgeous. To our northeast, we could see Mt. Monadnock 58 miles away in New Hampshire, and Mt. Wachusett 38 miles away. 
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In closer range, the Quabbin Reservoir lookout tower (white tower in the left photo) was easy to spot 18 miles to the north, and we could even see a small piece of the reservoir itself (at right) beyond the hills. 
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Rounding out the scenery, we had a nice view of the forests and fields of Monson directly below us.With no shortage of things to see, the difficult part was prying ourselves away when the time came to hike back down the mountain. |
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