This tour also leaves Northampton by the Coolidge Memorial Bridge, but at Hadley (3.0) it turns north on State Highway 63 and follows the river to Sunderland. Here the route recrosses the river, joining Federal Highway 5 at South Deerfield, and from this point south to Northampton the road lies almost literally in the shadow of the western upland.
In Hadley (3.0) the road turns north along Center Street and then swings right at the curve in the Connecticut (3.5). The river bank is lined with riprap to resist the current and to prevent the river from washing away a substantial section of the town. Across the stream in Hatfield the Connecticut very nearly achieved the type of destruction which the residents of Hadley are trying to escape, and the flood-channel, or “washout,” which was gouged by the swollen stream in the spring of 1936, may be seen (4.3) on the way to North Hadley. The road approaches Mount Warner, whose crystalline rocks appear at the south end of a long, low spur (4.8) on the edge of the river floodplain. Elsewhere along the base of the eminence, which scarcely merits the name “Mount,” the crystalline rocks are hidden by a terrace, but they crop out on the higher slopes. The younger red Triassic sandstones are present, too, and they may be seen dipping steeply westward in the brook bed between the bridge (5.9) and the dam (6.1) at North Hadley.
Sand dunes appear near the river on the outskirts of North Hadley (6.3) and extend north beyond Mount Warner (7.0) to the point where the road drops from the terrace to the floodplain (8.2). Here the former bed of the river is occupied by a puny brook, which enters the mainstream on the left. The terrace marking the edge of the floodplain lies close to the east side of the road for a long distance (8.2 to 9.8) and then swings a half mile eastward. The road follows a high area between two abandoned channels formerly used by the river (11.3), until it joins the Amherst-Sunderland road (11.8) at the southern edge of Sunderland. The route turns left in the center of town (12.4), crossing the river beneath Mount Sugarloaf, and it continues on to Federal Highway 5 at the traffic light in South Deerfield (14.2).
On the trip south from the junction, sand dunes appear east of the railroad between the Boston & Maine (14.6) and the New Haven crossings (14.9). The highway is situated on the flat bed of Lake Hadley from this point to Hatfield. The road to Whately, which turns west at 16.7, offers some attractions. It forks two miles beyond Whately, and the right branch leads to the Northampton reservoir and to Haydenville (see [p. 89]). The left branch follows West Fork Brook and comes back to Federal Highway 5 at North Hatfield (19.1). Either route provides a scenic drive over little-frequented gravel roads.
From the main highway the delta built by West Fork Brook into glacial Lake Hadley appears as a flat terrace along the western highland (18.2). The rolling fields (19.7) east of the railroad are dunes which were once raised by the wind along the old Connecticut channel. Mill River, which rises near Conway, parallels the highway for 6.1 miles and crosses it here to enter the Connecticut (20.3). The road approaches the massive gray rocks of the western upland (20.5), and the Hatfield lead vein (see [p. 64]) outcrops in a bluff on the right (20.9). The view south (22.3) shows the water gap between the Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom ranges. At the State Police barracks (23.4) the Hatfield road turns left, and a short distance beyond (23.9), on the west side of the road, is the abandoned City Quarry. The granite exposed in the quarry contains a black, radio-active mineral called allanite, and each glistening black crystal is surrounded by a reddish halo caused by bombardment of the feldspar by alpha particles.
A road to Florence branches right (24.5) near the railroad crossing, and one to the Coolidge Bridge turns left across the Boston & Maine tracks (24.7). A by-pass to the Berkshire Trail (25.6) goes west, and the tour returns to the Court House corner (26.1).
Northampton, Cummington, Plainfield, and South Deerfield
This tour includes a representative section of the Connecticut Lowland, traverses rugged valleys on the western margin of the lowland, and crosses a wide remnant of the New England upland. The trip is 58.6 miles long, and all of it except the last twelve miles moves through rapidly changing scenery.
The route leaves the Court House corner on State Highway 9, the Berkshire Trail, following Main and Elm Streets past Smith College. At the Cooley Dickinson Hospital the road rises from the bed of glacial Lake Hadley to the Mill River delta, which, despite some dissection, maintains the same general level through Florence (2.6) to Look Park (3.4), where a ridge dotted with glacial erratics rises through it. The road follows the delta margin past the Veteran’s Hospital and shortly (4.3) climbs to the land of erratics and stone fences. The road from Whately (see [p. 88]) enters from the right in Haydenville (7.1), and the Trail continues up Mill River to Williamsburg (8.1). Not far beyond the center of Williamsburg the road forks left for Chesterfield and right for Cummington.
The right hand route climbs a long wooded hill with a deep valley on the right and occasional cliffs of schist intruded by reinforcing granite dikes on the left. The view back near the hilltop (12.5) offers, through a frame of trees, a panorama of the Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom Ranges surmounting the Connecticut Lowland. The New England upland begins at the hilltop (13.1) in Goshen. Just past Goshen Pond (13.6), a road continues straight ahead to Ashfield, and the hard surface of the Berkshire Trail curves left. Ledges of flaggy Goshen schist outcrop from Goshen to Swift River (18.4); the banding of the ledges is almost horizontal at one place (14.6) and makes excellent flagging for garden walks. The west-flowing Swift River tumbles into the deeply entrenched, east-flowing Westfield River at Swift River village, and the combined streams flow due south through a “door” in a vertical wall of Goshen schist so narrow and inconspicuous that the water appears to run downhill and then up again. The Berkshire Trail follows up the north bank of the Westfield River as far as the lower bridge (19.5), at Cummington, where a road to Chesterfield turns left (19.6).