BY ERNEST F. IMHOFF ’59 ERNEST F. IMHOFF

rowing up in Williamstown in the 1940s, we found our playgrounds as often in the purple as we did on the ball fi elds. We camped out among the summit rocks of Pine Cobble and watched the lights go out one by one in town below. Some folks stayed up all night down there. On Stone Hill, we climbed young trees, bent with them and parachuted to earth on top-heavy masts of our meadow vessels. I broke an arm doing that. In summer, our Cub Scout den sallied forth from Petersburg Pass, hiked north and found Snow Hole. It was a deep crevasse where we threw ice balls at each other. To the east beyond North Adams, we swam in cold North Pond in the Hoosac Mountains to see who could stay in the longest. CARL IMHOFF Above: Cub Scout hikers pause in the in 1945. (The author, 8, is at Hiking to the ledges of the Dome past White Oaks took left; his mother is fourth from left.) Top: The misty foothills of Greylock and clouds us into a new world, at least on the map—’s Green hide the summit of the 3,491-foot peak—the highest in the state. Mountains. You could also hit Vermont by walking past the Cobble on the Appalachian merging with the Long Trail, taking you clear to Canada or Maine, too far for a day hike but enough to plant seeds of dreams. On Northwest Hill, eyes were shut tight as ears heard ghost stories the older devils told at the Boys Club’s summer encamp- ment. “The Bloody Headless Berkshire Beast” comes to mind. The woods beckoned, with some help. Brother Bill and I—and often our friends and fellow Cub Scouts—were enticed up one and down another hill by our aggressively

26 | WILLIAMS ALUMNI REVIEW | JANUARY 2006 ambulatory mother. Martha’s hiking Whenever in DNA was nurtured as a girl beneath the Williamstown I Brocken in the Harz Mountains, famous wondered if the in German literature as the peak where mountains had This page (at left): Goethe, Heine and other roaming poets changed, as had The author (seated), discovered good writing material. the jammed-up Howard Simpson ’50 (center) and Fred Our mountains weren’t just pur- campus, which Rasmussen study ple and pretty as in the song “The increasingly Williamstown from Mountains.” Some days they were the looked like the the summit of Pine Cobble; (below) the dark, cold, ugly Andes when expeditions Last Anxious Long Trail leads to got too long, as in “Let’s quit this stupid Stand of the Canada, 265 miles

KITTY SIMPSON away. hike.” Yet the hills were for hiking, not Village Green. I for singing. returned periodi- There were two kinds of elevations cally, re-entered the hills and recognized circling Williamstown like two rings of old friends in the landscapes. A camera wagon trains. There were hills—junior was in the backpack. mountains near downtown for little The hills of home are not quite kids—like Northwest, Birch, Buxton eternally unchanging as the Bible says. and Bee. One on Main Street, where a Most of Williamstown’s woods were Civil War soldier stands sentinel, was once cleared by farmers and loggers, mysteriously called Consumption Hill. but the vegetation returned in the same Sheep Hill, on Route 7 just before the 19th century. were re-routed to 1896 House, was for everyone. People avoid erosion. Small rock slides devel- ERNEST F. IMHOFF ERNEST F. who wanted to ski in town went there oped. New paths sprouted, one honor- and used a rope tow that pulled them all ing the College’s Robert R.R. Brooks, and development despite actual dreams the way up the sloping fi eld and made who loved and cared for the hills as few fearing these things. one’s arm muscles burn. others. Large meadows were overgrown. From the wide open summit of Berlin Big people climbed to higher eleva- Encroachment of houses, develop- Mountain—rare in the — tions in three states. Pine Cobble (1,893 ment schemes for Greylock, ski area Greylock remained only a bump on feet), The Dome (2,748) and Berlin clearances, acid rain and bark beetles the Range among siblings Prospect, Mountain (2,818), barely in , keep threatening deep woods. The Williams, Fitch and Saddle Ball. Its were considered outlying Himalayas. Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation watershed ran full with spring waters, Then came the day we were ready and other forces help save the land. and the woods were thick. On the for Mount Everest—Mount Greylock Interesting items are there for the opposite side were the Helderbergs (3,491 feet), the highest peak from looking. On Mount Williams, a black near Albany and the foothills of the there to Cape Cod. We scrambled up bear wandered around. College athletes Adirondacks. the Roaring Brook Trail to the War ran up Pine Cobble. Bits of old airplane Mountains teach. One winter day low Memorial and down again. Dead-tired wreckage on Greylock lay under leaves. clouds, snow on the quartzite and fl ur- climbers often despise the mountain at A bird man fl ew off the Taconic Crest on ries in the air turned Eph’s Lookout on the bottom—we did that day—but after his hang glider. Pine Cobble into a gloomy outlier. These just one night of sleep think about the The hills of home showed their old, elements made the hiker feel properly next adventure up high. We were soon beautiful stuff. The purple hills were also insignifi cant just two-and-a-half miles up another Greylock route. leafy green, autumn brown, storm gray, from town. The hiker sensed in clearer We learned these were the Taconic maple red and snow white. Howard perspective his place in the world, a Mountains and the Simpson ’50, comfortably at home in the good reason for keeping mountains safe and the Hoosac Mountains, not the outdoors, his wife Kitty and my col- from people. I “Berkshire Mountains.” Berkshire was league Fred Rasmussen joined me for a just the name of our county. Baltimoreans’ stroll on Pine Cobble. The Ernest F. Imhoff ’59 spent most of his Hiking was passé to me when I was at blueberries were ripe. career writing for The Baltimore Sun Williams, except as an escape. In later There was ice in summer again at Papers. He went on to hike higher in years, I took up frequent scrambling in Snow Hole. Although new housing was New England and out West and now is the White Mountains of at the foot, Pine Cobble’s ridge on East also an ordinary seaman on a revived and Maine and in thinner air out West. Mountain was intact and free of trash World War II Liberty ship in Baltimore.

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