Monument Mountain Reservation

Author's Comments

The quartzite is what makes this mountain different. Most Berkshire summits give you trees and a view, but Squaw Peak gives you bare white rock that catches the late light and holds it, almost glows with it, while the valley below has already gone into shadow. I climb the Hickey Trail when I want my legs to last and the Indian Monument Trail when I want the photograph. The steeper route deserves the time. October is the obvious month and it earns the reputation. The southern Berkshires turn in early to mid-month, and from the summit the foliage spreads in every direction in the layered way that only happens when you are high enough to see ridge behind ridge behind ridge. Golden hour here is brief and worth planning around. The cliffs face such that the last forty minutes of sun rake across the quartzite and turn it almost pink, and the valley reds deepen into something closer to wine. I think often, standing up there, about Melville and Hawthorne meeting on this mountain in a thunderstorm in 1850. It is the kind of detail that does not need to inform the photograph but somehow does. The place has been looked at by serious people for a long time. You feel it. Bring a wide lens for the panoramic work and something longer for the ridge compression shots looking south. The summit is exposed and the wind moves fast across the rock. Time the descent so you are not finding the trail in the dark.

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