Whitcomb Summit — The Top of the Trail

You've made it to the roof of the Mohawk Trail. This is Whitcomb Summit — at two thousand two hundred and forty feet, the highest point on the entire drive, and back on October twenty-second, 1914, the very spot where they stood and dedicated this road as the first scenic auto route in America. There's a pull-off here; take it, get out, and stretch, because the view is the reason the whole thing exists.

On a clear day you can see into four states from up here — the Berkshires rolling away in every direction, the Deerfield valley to the east, the Green Mountains of Vermont to the north, and the Taconics marking New York to the west. In autumn this overlook is one of the most photographed spots in New England, a whole horizon of red and gold.

You'll also spot a bronze elk standing guard at the summit. That statue was raised in 1923 by the Elks — the fraternal order — as a memorial to their members who died in the First World War, and it's kept watch over this high pass ever since. Take your photos, catch your breath. From here the road starts down the western side of the mountains, and it does it in the most famous way it possibly could — around the Hairpin Turn.