Recreation and Conservation
Activities enjoyed on the Pocumtuck Range include hiking, mountain biking, snowshoeing, backcountry skiing, hunting (in season), picnicking, and bird watching.
Seventy percent of the ridgeline route traversed by the 20-mile (32 km) Pocumtuck Ridge Trail has been conserved as state, municipal, or non profit holdings, or as private land under conservation easement. The rest of the ridgeline, and much of the slopes of the mountain, remain in the private domain. The trail begins on South Sugarloaf and traverses the ridge to Poet's Seat.
A network of smaller marked and unmarked trails also crisscross the range. Sugarloaf Mountain, at the southern end of the range, is managed as the Mount Sugarloaf State Reservation, with an observation tower and automobile toll road, open in season. Several trails climb to the summits. Poet's Seat and the adjacent parklands on Rocky Mountain are mangaged by the City of Greenfield. Poet's Seat Tower Park features a 1912 sandstone observation tower named in honor of local poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman. The annual Fourth of July fireworks celebration takes place at Poet's Seat. The tower is open seasonally via a quarter-mile walk from a ridgetop trailhead or via auto road (in season). An observation platform at the abrupt ledge of Sachem Head is accessible via the same trailhead. Eaglebrook School, a boarding school for boys grades six to nine, runs the chairlift-served Easton Ski Area on the west side of Pocumtuck Ridge (closed to the public). A defunct Eaglebrook ski area is located to the north. Another defunct ski area, once operated by Deerfield Academy, is located on the east side of the ridge.
The Pocumtuck Range is most threatened by development and quarrying. The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and several local conservation non-profits have made conservation of the range a priority.
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Famous quotes containing the words recreation and/or conservation:
“Playing snooker gives you firm hands and helps to build up character. It is the ideal recreation for dedicated nuns.”
—Archbishop Luigi Barito (b. 1922)
“The putting into force of laws which shall secure the conservation of our resources, as far as they may be within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, including the more important work of saving and restoring our forests and the great improvement of waterways, are all proper government functions which must involve large expenditure if properly performed.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)