Any nature lover will find the trail very interesting. The views from the western half are unexcelled. Wild flowers and birds abound along the less frequented eastern section. Anyone wishing to see how molten lavas and earth movements in the distant past have influenced the topography of the present will find the far eastern walk a veritable revelation.
Trips from Northampton
Northampton makes an excellent base for many drives that will gratify the lover of scenery, of rocks, or of minerals. The drives range from ten to one hundred miles in length, and any one of them may be extended or shortened at the whim of the driver. To the east the hard surface of Route 9 leads through Amherst, Pelham, and Belchertown; and to the west, as the Berkshire Trail, it rises to the western upland via Williamsburg and Goshen. Side roads go to Ashfield and Conway, and permit a return by way of South Deerfield; or, via Cummington and West Chesterfield, one may come back by way of Huntington and Westhampton. Federal Highway 5 follows the Valley north to Greenfield, whence optional return routes are available through Shelburne Falls, Conway and South Deerfield in the western upland; or through Orange, Pelham and Amherst in the eastern upland. Each of these routes offers arresting views of the broad Connecticut Valley, the picturesque gorges along its margins, and the even-crested highlands with distant peaks of greater elevation. Indeed, the choice of attractive drives is bewildering, even for those who are hesitant about wandering off the surfaced highways.
In the following pages only a few of the possibilities which are available to the motorist are described. And for each one chosen, the striking views and the significant geological features are indicated, in the hope and belief that the traveler may turn explorer and, in following other byways, may reconstruct for himself many additional details of the region’s geologic past.
Northampton, Amherst, Pelham
The route leaves from the Court House corner on Highway 5 and the excursion follows Route 9 eastward across the Coolidge Memorial Bridge (1.3),[1] where a panorama of the floodplain with its many channel scars and terrace levels is spread out below (see pp. [1]-3). Beyond Hadley (3.0) the road tops the highest river floodplain at a conspicuous terrace (4.9) and rolls gently over the ancient bed of Lake Hadley. The shore line of this glacial lake appears as a broad flat between Orchard Street and Lincoln Avenue in Amherst (6-9). (See pp. [5]-7.)
The route turns left at the traffic intersection (7.2) and continues to the north end of the common (7.4), where it turns right on the Pelham road. This road crosses the lake bottom from the Central Vermont Railroad tracks (7.9) to the Orient (9.9), where the delta of glacial Orient Brook made a conspicuous gravel terrace at the farthest limit of the lake. Stone fences make their appearance (see pp. [8]-9); rocky ledges and erratics abound at higher elevations, but perched shore lines of ice-margin lakes occur at many levels up Pelham Hill. The road to Mount Lincoln (see pp. [51]-52) turns right (11.2) just west of the Amherst reservoir (11.4). As the road approaches the hilltop (12.9), an opening westward through the trees reveals an unusual view of the Holyoke Range; and the broad lowland valley from Mount Tom in the south to Mount Sugarloaf in the north spreads out below. On the hilltop (13.3) the road enters the Daniel Shays Highway (13.9). Mount Wachusett (see [p. 15]) lies straight ahead and projects above the great expanse of the New England upland (see [p. 46]); Mount Monadnock rises even higher in the northeast, and everywhere, deep valleys furrow the highland and break its otherwise monotonous surface.
The Daniel Shays Highway runs north to Athol, where it joins the Mohawk Trail; but on this trip we shall turn to the right, or south, at Pelham and follow Federal Highway 202 along the valleys in the Quabbin reservoir watershed. Pelham gneiss is the most abundant rock along the highway, outcropping west of the road (14.1) in a series of eastward-dipping layers that resemble sandstone. Mount Lincoln’s fire tower stands high above the skyline directly west from the power line crossing (16.1). The country has a gently rolling form, which was imposed upon it by the ice sheet (see [p. 9]), and the miles of stone fences represent glacial debris piled up by the early settlers in an effort to bring agricultural order out of geological chaos. Blossoms on the wild cherry trees along these fences and the flowering dogwood make this a particularly attractive drive in the spring. A ledge of gneiss with large eye-shaped crystals of reddish feldspar lies east of the highway at 16.3 miles. As the road begins to descend (18.1), a panorama of the broad lowland between Belchertown and Palmer spreads out below. View succeeds view as the road drops to lower levels: At one place it is Holyoke and Springfield; at another it is Belchertown; and finally the highway comes to the corners (21.1) where routes lead right to Amherst, left to Worcester, and straight ahead through Belchertown to Palmer, Springfield and Holyoke.
The Granby-Holyoke road (Federal Highway 202) turns right at the south end of the Belchertown common (22.0). After crossing the railroad (22.4), it passes out upon the plain of glacial Lake Springfield (25.3) where the stone fences cease to line the roads, because the lake deposits cover the glacial boulders. Rocky islands in glacial Lake Springfield surmount the flat lacustrine plain (26.9). Granby is situated on a long rolling point (28 to 31.6) that is underlain principally by flat-lying arkosic conglomerate, but more ancient crystalline rocks appear just a little farther east. In this section the lake plain is very narrow, and the drop to the Connecticut River Valley begins at 32.3 miles and continues to the junction with the South Hadley road (33.2), where varved clay (see pp. [4]-7) makes its appearance in the pits to the right of the highway.
The itinerary of this excursion continues on Federal Highway 202 through Holyoke in preference to the alternate routes through South Hadley and thence either by way of Hockanum ([p. 85]) or via Amherst (pp. [83]-84) to Northampton. The Holyoke road crosses the Connecticut River (33.8 to 34.1) where the Longmeadow or youngest Triassic sandstone appears in a series of serrate ledges between the bridge and the dam at the right. Mud-cracks on some layers and ripple marks on others tell of wet and dry seasons at the time they were formed. The route turns right just south of the Holyoke post office (34.6) and right again into Federal Highway 5 (36.2), which parallels the river.