The Garden of the Trees: A Berkshires Weekend: Fall fab weekend

 
            Here's a photo of the Stone Seat, that was the favorite woodland walk destination for a Williamstown figure.... I know nothing of Williamstown really, except for the Clarke Art Museum. Turns out there's a series of walking paths in the woods and pasture land behind the museum. Our trail gude calls the site "Williamstown's favorite walk."             The most popular destination is the xxx Stone Bench favored over a century ago by George Mortitz wahl, German-born, retired professor who walks to his favorite spot in the woods and died in 1923. They built a stone bench at intersection of the trails.             We walked some of these trails, where you stop seeing people             According to Williams College Record, the college newspapert, There are numerous trails on the hill that can be combined for hikes ranging from 0.7 to 4.0 miles in length. When hiked clockwise, the approximately 4-mile path described here provides the hiker with dense forests, massive rock outcroppings and, at the very end," a great view of tpwm f Williamstown and the Green Moutns opf Vr=ermont. Which I don't thknk we knew about because we certainly didn't find it.             We did find crowded paring olots in the retail streets around the Williams College, one of the few crwods on an otherwise highy subdued three-day October weekend in the Berkshires. Little traffic to speak of on Route 7, a road we've been locked up on, other Columbus Day weekends. Maybe everybody else kne was the weather was gong to clouds the first day followed by rain the second. The third day, the day when we had to leave, was in true Berkshire fashion crystal clear and absolutely stunning.             Our next site, after the crowded intown parking lot, where we looked for essential provisions (coffee), was one of the best autumn day picnic spots we'ver ever found. It was right on the farmyard of the Sheep Hill farm (something preserve). A picnic table surrouned by the steep pasture on one side and the view of thickly wooded hills across Rpute 7 rising up to Mount Greylock, the highest point in the state.             We had the place completely to ourselves. No one else around. his 50-acre former dairy farm was purchased by the Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation in 2000. Art and Ella Rosenburg and their son ‘young Art’ moved here in 1933 and had a milking herd for more than 50 years.e Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation (http://wrlf.org/sheep-hill/)            It was called Sunny Brook Farm, and the landscape Sheep Hill, for the sheep raised here in the late 19th century.            I took some photos of the strikingly furrowed tractor-cut patterns of the hayed meadow. The contours are more prominent and the gradient steeper than what the camera captures. Ffrom the path along the top of the pasture I took photos of the foliage on the ridges, and one  of the observation tower on top of Greylock.