A River Runs Through It
With Autumn finally taking hold in New England, we thought it might be a good time to share our visit to some of the mountain peaks in western Massachusetts, especially the Pioneer Valley between Franklin and Hampshire Counties. Although most of our photographs were taken in August, we hope these pictures, and the story they tell, will inspire you to visit this region, especially now that this most wonderful time of the year has arrived!
Driving on Interstate 91 in either direction in western Massachusetts finds motorists blowing along this conduit to their busy, modern lives, many of them residing in the towns and cities dotting the distant landscapes aside the highway’s corridor. But, looking above and below this scene, there’s evidence of a much, much more distant history—one that even predates a human presence: the Mts. Tom and Holyoke ranges, each flanking the Connecticut River on its west and east banks, respectively. Image: Interstate 91N just outside of Northampton with Mt. Holyoke in the distance.
The two mountain ranges formed during the Triassic Period, approximately 200 million years ago, as volcanic activity released lava from within a rift that eventually hardened to a thickness of hundreds of feet. Later, earthquake activity caused these formations to tilt, resulting in the mountains’ notable slopes and ridges.
Image: from Mt. Tom's, Goat Peak, with the Holyoke Range's Seven Sisters in the background. This photo illustrates the uncommon north-south, east-west trajectories of the 2 ranges.
Between the 2 mountain ranges flows the Connecticut River, a prehistoric waterway whose humble source, the tiny Fourth Connecticut Lake, lies along the border of Pittsburg, New Hampshire and Chartierville, Quebec, Canada.
This 528’ pond is the remains of a tarn, formed millions of years ago from a mountain glacier that avalanched from higher ground, leaving behind an earthen depression. It is from this point that the Connecticut River begins its 410 mile stretch through four of the six New England states (excluding Maine and Rhode Island)... Image: Fourth Connecticut Lake. Google Images, source unknown.
finally discharging into Long Island Sound at Old Saybrook, Ct, providing 70% of the Sounds’ fresh water.
It is, by far, the longest river in New England, and its 148 tributaries include rivers, lakes and ponds from all five of its watershed states (though technically all six as it includes a minuscule portion in Oxford County, ME, as this map illustrates). Image: Connecticut River Watershed Council, the Connecticut & its tributaries [map]
A sub-tropical swamp 190 million years ago, the Connecticut River Valley provided the perfect environment for capturing and preserving dinosaur tracks as these creatures hunted and hydrated along the riverbed.
Looking at these impressions, one can see portions of their paths, conjuring images of the prehistoric creatures lumbering (or scrambling) along the shore and the surrounding mountain ridges.
There are several trails open to the public within the Middle Connecticut River Region, an area between Massachusetts and central Connecticut, with the highest concentration of dinosaur prints located in South Hadley, MA.
An important and lasting geological event occurred 15,000 years ago (the recent past in geological terms!) with the formation of a now extinct glacial lake—later named Lake Hitchcock in the 19th century. During the last Ice Age, massive ice sheets broke apart and damming occurred, creating a large lake that spanned an area between southern Vermont and central Connecticut. When the 3-mile deep ice dam broke apart 3,000 years later during the glacial retreat, the lake receded into the flow, re-establishing the modern river, and leaving behind a fertile plain that has since provided a rich agrarian resource.
Today, the river’s deepest point lies 130’ under the French King Bridge in Gill, MA. At its widest, the river spans 2,100’ from bank to bank in Longmeadow, MA; however, the river’s depth in some areas is just a few inches, particularly during the summer months, while other portions are only a few hundred feet wide, thus making the river unnavigable in certain places.
The word “Connecticut” is the French corruption of a Mohican/Algonquin word meaning “long tidal river” (the estuary marks the portion with the strongest tidal action). The early English colonists referred to it simply as the “Great River”. It is home to rare creatures, including water and shore dwellers like shortnose sturgeon, piping plover, puritan tiger beetle, dwarf wedgemussel, and Northeastern bulrush, to name a few.
In 1998, President Clinton designated it as an American Heritage River (along with 13 other rivers in the United States), “recognized for its distinctive natural, economic, agricultural, scenic, historic, cultural and recreational qualities”. The river was also the first named in the National Blueways system in 2012, awarded for its robust health and quality, resulting from integrated land and water stewardship in recent decades.
About 9,000 years ago the first human inhabitants, ancestors of the Pocumtuck group, appeared along the river’s bed, eventually establishing communities where fishing, hunting, and the fertile soil sustained them with a bountiful supply of food. The mountains’ traprock provided an excellent resource for making tools and weapons. The mountains and the river, also, provided a means of cultural identity, both social and creationist, with the prominent geographical features often incorporated into native spiritual lore. The ancient oral tradition informs us that these native people revered the views from the mountain summits as sacred.
A unique feature of the Mt. Holyoke Range is that it runs east-west, while Mt. Tom runs north-south with the river coursing in between them. Mt. Tom, situated within the cities of Easthampton and Holyoke, rises 1,020 ft., and is the highest peak in its range, which is part of the larger 100 mile-long Metacomet Ridge.
Mt. Holyoke, located in the opposite range, stands at 935 ft., inside the towns of Hadley and South Hadley. The two mountains received their current names in the 1660s, when surveyors Rowland Thomas and Elizur Holyoke, bestowed their eponyminc gesture upon the two peaks while surveying on opposite sides (Thomas on the west and Holyoke on the east) of the Connecticut River for the Springfield settlement. Image: view of Mt. Holyoke range from Mt. Tom range.
Both mountains share biodiverse environments, and just like the river, host many rare and endangered plant and animal species, such as the prickly pear cactus, showy lady's slipper, yellow corydalis, ram's–head lady's slipper, basil mountain mint, devil's bit lily, peregrine falcon, and northern copperhead. Image: entrance to one of the multiple trails on Mt. Holyoke.
The cliffs along the mountain ridges serve as an important migration corridor for over 5,000 raptors annually.
Long admired for the scenic beauty and dramatic views they provide, the mountains have possessed an intrinsic value for as many generations as have stood at both base and summit. The allure has remained constant throughout the millennia.
Springfield native, Theodore Gisel (aka, Dr. Seuss), spent a lot of time exploring the Mt. Tom range. One day, standing along its northern ridge, as he gazed down upon the village of Easthampton, he “got a wonderful, awe-full idea”: the inspiration for his famous “Whoville”. Image: the city of Easthampton at the foot of Mt. Tom.
During the 19th century, the natural and vast beauty of the United States was widely celebrated. Places like Mt. Holyoke drew some of the brightest minds, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Quincy Adams, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Even Abraham Lincoln, before he was well known, made the ascent once after delivering a speech in Springfield. Landscape painter, Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School movement, created one of his most famous works, “View from Mt. Holyoke, after a Thunderstorm” capturing Northampton’s Oxbow as it appeared in 1836 (the northern aspect of the Oxbow, was bisected with the construction of I91 in the 1960s; at the time, the feature was deemed as “low-value waterfront”). Image: Thomas Cole, American (1801–1848), View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow, 1836, oil on canvas, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Mount Tom, by Thomas Charles Farrer (1839-1891), Mount Tom, 1865, oil on canvas, John Wilmerding Collection, courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
As far back as 1821 there is record of a guest cabin atop Mt. Holyoke (one of the first in New England), but there are even earlier suggestions that rudimentary structures were erected there for local men to congregate, socialize and consume alcohol. More substantial buildings replaced earlier structures during the ensuing years, and as the mountain’s popularity grew, it eventually became a tourist destination which was second only to Niagara Falls.
Similarly, several “mountain houses” were erected on the various peaks along the middle Connecticut River region, including Mt. Tom and Sugarloaf Mountain, in South Deerfield, MA. Mt. Tom’s elaborate and last summit house opened in 1901 after fire consumed a previous structure that had been built only 3 years earlier. Encouraged by the enthusiastic crowds who had flocked to the earlier incarnation, this new 7-story hotel featured an expanded 300 person capacity hall, topped by a brilliant gold dome, making it a central landmark for the next 27 years until it, too, met a fiery end. Image: from Google Images, source unknown.
An important juncture for Mt. Tom occurred at this time when the idea for an amusement park was introduced in 1929. Several existing structures were expanded and adapted, and rides and concessions were added. Mountain Park, an extremely popular destination, remained in operation until its closure in 1987, concluding the most prolific commercial and recreational enterprise ever conducted upon any of the ranges. Image: aerial view of Mountain Park before it was dismantled. From Google Images, source unknown.
Sugarloaf Mountain maintained several mountain houses from the mid 19th to early 20th centuries, all of which, likewise, succumbed to fire. Currently, a viewing “platform” stands on the summit with breathtaking views of the river and valley. Its design is based upon the famous 1935 Frank Lloyd Wright house, “Fallingwater”, located in PA.
View from Sugarloaf with Sunderland to the left and Deefield to the right of the river. Mt. Warner is in the foreground, and in the background, lies the Holyoke Range.
View of the fertile plains, looking south from the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain.
Mt. Holyoke’s Summit House can be seen from several vantage points, and it appears almost like a ancient temple aloft Mt. Holyoke, particularly at sunrise/set.
After being closed for 4 years due to structural concerns, Summit House reopened to the public in the summer of 2014, the rooms restored and the grounds expanded.
Built as a hotel in 1861, Prospect House, as it was then called, is one of the last surviving structures of its kind in New England.
Interior detail of the hotel, featuring this large fire extinguisher, front and center.
A larger 4-story addition was destroyed during the Hurricane of ’38, leaving this smaller 2-story building as a historical reminder of how leisure and entertainment were defined between the 2 centuries.
After the hurricane, the hotel never reopened, but was instead gifted along with 372 acres to the state in 1940 by its owner, local businessman, Joseph Skinner. His only request was that a park be established in his name, hence, Skinner State Park was created. Image: view from one of the guest rooms.
Beginning with the advent of the automobile, broader and grander recreational opportunities arrived, diminishing the appeal of these mountain retreats. Eventually, activity on the mountains and river declined, structures were abandoned and/or razed, and nature reclaimed most of the evidence of what had been.
Still, the river and its mountains coyly reveal what once was through the exposed geological "layer cake", dinosaur fossils, lost arrowheads, and ruins of the abandoned amusement park.
With 99% of all species that ever existed on earth now extinct, we, too, will likely be supplanted one day. What will certainly outlast the evolution of this entire story, of course, are the mountains and the river that bear witness to it all.
Climb every mountain:
Ford every stream:
About the images: the photos herein are credited to Tankful Travels unless otherwise noted. Tankful Travels makes every effort to adhere to identification, citation and attribution best practices for the images that appear in our posts. If you find discrepancies or broader information than we have provided please contact us via email.