Don’t worry, this hike wasn’t during the deep freeze! Ha-ha. We went the weekend before and the weather was great!

We went back and forth on which mountain to climb: did we want to stay relatively close to home or venture north to New Hampshire or Vermont? We settled on Mt. Greylock in North Adams, Massachusetts and ended up hiking in a winter wonderland!

The snow wasn’t too deep at home, so we weren’t sure how the higher elevations would be. It was enough that we needed our cramp-ons but thankfully not deep enough that we needed snow shoes.

We took the Bellows Falls Trail about 3 miles up to the shelter. We got there around 3PM and instead of heading up to the summit and back, we decided to set up camp. The rest of the way to the summit was steeper and we didn’t want to risk getting stuck coming back in the dark. It worked out perfectly because we had the daylight to set up and get settled. I had a Peak Refuel pasta dish and David had a Mountain House lasagna. We watched all episodes of the Witcher Origins and turned in around 9PM.

We were up the next morning and on the trail by 9AM. Breakfast was a Huel shake and a Pop-Tart. The snow was getting deeper as we ascended but we had no problem, with our cramp-ons and trekking poles. It was cloudy but not too windy or cold. We saw a few more hikers and a ton of snowmobiles. During the winter months the road to the summit is closed to cars and open to snowmobiles.

After about 2 miles or so, we reached the summit. We had a quick snack, got in the view and then headed back down (the summit WAS cold and windy, ha-ha).

Our initial plan was to hike the Appalachian Trail back to another trail that would get us back to our car, but it turned out that it hadn’t been hiked yet since the snowstorm! Since we didn’t have any snowshoes, we decided to head back down the same trail we came up. We took a wrong turn at the shelter and almost went down a different trail until we started to see sites that we didn’t recognize. Thankfully it wasn’t a long way back to where we split.

We did about 9 miles on the out and back. Before heading home, we stopped at Pizza Works in North Adams for lunch. We’ve gone there twice before and even had lunch before we started the hike. They make amazing subs and pizza (the chicken parm and steak.cheese are to die for!) and we always make it a point to go there when we’re in the area.

Do you enjoy hiking in the snow?