As I said last week, this winter has been particularly tough with perpetual snow (and ice) and winds that cut through your thickest layers. I hate having to rush from building to building, and I’ve been dreaming of warmer days, long walks and bike rides, and lingering outside. Since I started biking everywhere my freshman spring, the Valley has completely opened up to me, and after almost 8 semesters and a summer on campus, I’ve racked up a long list of favorite spots.
Swimming
Over the summer, my favorite after-work thing to do was put on my swimsuit and bike to the Fort River for a swim. In those days, I had a mountain bike, and I’d take the rail trail up to Book and Plow’s main fields, then continue down Mill Lane toward the spot where the Fort River enters a conservation area. There’s a tiny beach with branches to hang your clothes from and a little swimming hole. Sometimes I’d go alone, sometimes with friends, but it was always more fun on a bike. Because it was so warm and the days were long, I’d try to take a new way home every time, ending up hungry at Val in a wet suit.
My best friend from home visited me for a weekend in July, and we picknicked at the Hadley Reservoir, right by Hampshire’s campus. We bathed in the late afternoon light and wound up falling asleep for a few hours. I’ve actually gone back a few times since summer’s end, once on Election Day to decompress and try to enjoy the unusually warm weather, and once for a polar plunge on the last day of classes in December.
Reading
The Norwottuck Rail trail runs behind campus and stretches far both to the east and west, and is a very good way to get to Hadley or Northampton by bike. One of my favorite days of sophomore year, a couple of friends showed me the way to an offshoot of the rail trail in Hadley which led out a path through wide open fields. We sat in the autumn sun and did class readings, and I went home feeling sunbaked and happy.
The Wildlife Sanctuary is part of Amherst’s campus, and has a ton of winding trails with little benches and a few ponds where you can take your readings or your thoughts. It all connects to Book and Plow Farm, and you could spend all day walking and sitting.
Walking
Freshman year, I stayed on campus over spring break, and my friend and I took the longest walk of our lives. I think it ended up being about 15 miles total. We planned it so we’d end up at Val for lunch halfway through the walk to give us strength for the second half. We picked up some walking sticks along the way and went all the way up to Puffer’s Pond in North Amherst, all the way past the far reaches of UMass campus. While it was a warm March day, the pond was still frozen over and we sat and threw rocks at the ice for a bit before returning home.
I walked all over the Valley last summer as part of my job, since I was working for the Kestrel Land Trust as a sustainability fellow (which maybe I’ll write about in the future). We visited MacLeish Field Station up north, the Quabbin Reservoir to the east, and all of Amherst College’s mountainous land parcels. There is so much walking to be done in this Valley, and I won’t have even scratched the surface by the time I graduate. That’s why I’m hoping the ice melts soon and I can get back outside, because I’m sorely missing it.