At the summit of Greylock, you stand on the highest point in Massachusetts, at a little over a thousand metres, and the first thing you see is a tower. The Veterans War Memorial Tower, a tall granite lighthouse-shaped shaft topped by a beacon, was built in the 1930s to honour the state's war dead, and it dominates the summit. On a clear day, climbing it gives a view that people say reaches five states, over the Berkshires, the Taconic Range, the Green Mountains of Vermont and the distant Catskills. When the cloud comes down, as it often does, you see nothing at all, and the tower disappears into the mist.
Beside it stands Bascom Lodge, a stone and timber building put up by the Civilian Conservation Corps and still operating as a hikers' lodge, with a cafe and rooms in the season. The summit area is a small, wind-scoured plateau of rock, grass and stunted spruce, and the weather can change in minutes. Temperatures are lower than in the valleys, and the wind can be sharp even in July, so a jacket is a sensible thing to carry. The Appalachian Trail passes over the summit, and through-hikers sometimes stop for a meal.
The forest at the top is a boreal outlier, a patch of northern spruce and fir stranded in southern New England by altitude. Birds that you would expect in Canada, such as the bicknell's thrush and the blackpoll warbler, nest on the upper slopes, and in the cooler hollows the moss and ferns are thick. The whole mountain is a state reservation, and a haven for walkers, birdwatchers and, on winter weekends, cross-country skiers. In the evening, if you can stay for the sunset, the ridge is quiet and the light turns pink on the valleys below.
Motorcyclists reach the summit by Rockwell Road from the south or by Notch Road from the north, though both are seasonal and can be closed by weather. The roads are narrow and winding, and the surface, while paved, is patchy, so ride with care. Check the weather before you commit, because fog and rain can arrive quickly, and keep warm layers handy.