The Mohawk Trail

The Mohawk Trail

36 stops· 53 min· 49.1 mi

Fifty miles of the Mohawk Trail — Massachusetts Route 2 — the marquee New England fall-foliage drive and, back in 1914, the very first road in the country built purely for the pleasure of the view. It climbs out of the Connecticut River valley at the great French King Bridge, up through Shelburne Falls and Charlemont into the Berkshire hills, over Whitcomb Summit and around the white-knuckle Hairpin Turn, and down into North Adams and Williamstown under the shadow of Mount Greylock. Ranger Quinn keeps you oriented and safe and tells you what you're seeing — the river gorge, the flaming maples, the old summits and their four-state views. Ranger Boone Merrick brings the tales this old road has carried for a thousand years: the Native 'Great Path' that came first, the French scout who named a rock in the river, the winter the whole town of Deerfield was marched to Canada, the railroad tunnel they called the Bloody Pit, and the mountain a novelist watched like a sleeping whale while he wrote Moby-Dick. Drive it either way. Best in late September and October, when the hills catch fire. Roll.