Charlemont and Mohawk Park, where the bronze 'Hail to the Sunrise' statue faces east over the Deerfield River — the heart of the old Native trail country and the gateway to the mountain climb.
You're rolling into Charlemont now, a small mountain town wrapped in the bend of the Deerfield River, and this is the heart of the old Mohawk Trail country. Watch on your side of the road for a roadside park with a striking bronze figure standing among the trees — that's the statue called Hail to the Sunrise. It's a nine-hundred-pound Native figure, arms lifted to the rising sun, put up in 1932 to honor the Mohawk and the other nations whose footpath this road followed. It's beautiful and it's complicated, and Boone has that whole story.
Charlemont is also where the river comes into its own. The Deerfield running alongside you is one of the best whitewater rivers in the Northeast — outfitters just up the road run raft trips through a stretch called Zoar Gap, and the water you're seeing is often a scheduled release from the dams upstream, so it runs strong even in a dry summer.
And this is where the Trail gets serious. Just west of Charlemont the road leaves the river, ducks into the woods, and begins the long climb up over the mountains. The curves tighten, the grade steepens, and the next stretch is the wild, high heart of the whole drive. Gear down and enjoy it.
Photo: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States · CC BY-SA 2.0
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