WILLEM: We are standing today about as far west as you can get in the state of Massachusetts, and we're as high as you can get in the state of Massachusetts.

You might well wonder why.

Well, it'll be revealed to you during the next half hour, but it has something to do with a creature named Moby Dick.

♪ Welcome to Windows to the Wild.

I'm Willem Lange.

I'm standing today about halfway up Mount Greylock in northwestern Massachusetts, and we're going to explore the mountain today with some new friends of ours, Mina Greene, a radio person from Boston and an avid hiker, right?

MINA: Yes, sir.

WILEM: And her husband, Doug.

They're going to show us around at least this part of Mount Greylock, which is much larger than this, and we're going to talk, I think, a little bit about Herman Melville, who used the mountain many years ago as an inspiration for his novel Moby Dick.

Now, this is a new one on you, right?

MINA: Yes, it is actually.

WILLEM: Luckily, it is on me, but I've been reading about it.

And we'll talk about it as we go along.

But our first chunk is going to be about a mile or so.

MINA: About a mile or so to the Old Sperry Road.

WILLEM: Old Sperry road, okay.

MINA: Then we're going to head down to the Sperry campground and then on through up to Rocky Ledge Stony Ledge I'm sorry.

Stony Ledge.

Which is a Beautiful view of the hopper.

WILLEM: All right, so we may make it before dark.

MINA: Oh, yes, I think so.

WILLEM: Good.

Let's do it.

MINA: Great!

WILLEM: Okay, come on.

MINA: Let’s go.

♪ WILLEM: Well this isn’t bad; nice trail!

MINA: No, it is a nice trail.

WILLEM: To find Mount Greylock, head to western Massachusetts near North Adams and Williamstown.

At nearly 3,500 feet, it's easy to spot.

♪ Greylock overlooks the Berkshires, and from the summit on a clear day, you can see five states.

♪ There are more than 30 hiking trails that crisscross the mountain, ranging in difficulty from easy to strenuous.

MINA: Yeah, I think this is the best way.

Just be careful.

I haven't found any loose ones yet.

Survived to just see it.

WILLEM: From what I've seen so far, they’re beautifully groomed.

MINA: I'm sure he knows, and I'm sure he's... Bascom Lodge sits at the top of the mountain.

Members of the Civilian Conservation Corps built it in the 1930s for hikers and vacationers to catch their breath and a view of the surrounding mountains.

♪ In the old days, was there a carriage road up the mountain always?

MINA: I believe there was.

And when they built the lodge, which we're going to go to later, they just celebrated their 75th year, and it's just the story and the plaques and things that they have up there are amazing of how they actually cleared the top and had to drag the stuff down... ♪ WILLEM: With public pressure to preserve Mount Greylock’s natural environment.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts acquired it in 1898.

MINA: This is the first conservation park in the state of Massachusetts.

We're in the top three, I believe.

It was Yosemite, the Adirondacks, and Mount Greylock.

And it really is amazing some of the things that we're going to see and just some of the plaques; we can be reading about civil engineers who helped clear most of this after the war, during the war, and put people back to work.

♪ WILLEM: We're here today because of a whole chain of people who started hiking here and passed the word down, sort of like a virus, and then it ended up with your inviting us to come here today?

MINA: Yes.

WILLEM: Okay.

So, where does it start?

DOUG: My Uncle Ellis has been hiking this mountain for over 50 years.

WILLEM: Is he still with us?

BOTH: Oh, yes.

WILLEM: Oh, good.

DOUG: He's still hiking.

Couldn't join us today, unfortunately, but he recommended just coming up here.

Recommended a couple of trails the Hopper, where we're on our way to now.

WILLEM: But it was this man, Bud Hoover, who introduced Mina and Doug to Greylock.

They can't help but think of him as an ambassador for the mountain.

MINA: And he said, you know, Have you been down to the old growth forest yet?

And we said, No, we just drove up here to Stony Ledge.

And he said, Come on, I'll take you down to the old growth forest, and we spent about five hours with him, and he was just fabulous.

And it wasn't until I had invited you to come walk with us today that I started trying to research him.

And unfortunately, he passed in 2009 just before the road was redone.

And I found out fascinating things about him.

I just thought he was just a nice man that lived around here and just hiked the mountain.

He was a naturalist, he used to bring his sons up here and they used to hike constantly.

[birds calling] WILLEM: And there's a lot of land to hike on more than 70 miles of trails.

There are birds, wildflowers, and butterflies.

Remember the butterflies; we'll get to those a bit later.

But all of this could have been very different.

You know that once upon a time in the 30s actually, they wanted to build a highway from here up the spine of Vermont, all the way to Canada.

The Green Mountain Highway, like the thing in Virginia, like Skyline Drive.

And Vermonters voted against it.

So now we have the Long Trail instead of the long road, which is very nice.

[birds calling] This mountain, perhaps these very trails, hosted Henry David Thoreau in 1844.

One morning on the summit, he rose surrounded by clouds and observed how he'd been cut off from the trivial places we named Massachusetts or Vermont or New York.

♪ ♪ [water falling] A rustic bridge.

MINA: Yep.

WILLEM: Across a mountain brook.

[chuckling] MINA: I love the sound.

WILLEM: Oh, yeah.

Cool here, too.

What would Henry David Thoreau say if he were here right now?

MINA: I think he would think it was beautiful.

WILLEM: He wouldn't say, We really ought to be leaping the brook.

MINA: Leaping the brook, that’s right!

WILLEM: Rather than on this... MINA: On this bridge.

♪ I'm going to throw it.

I'm going to leap this.

WILLEM: Thinking back to Mina’s friend, Bud Hoover, kind of got me singing a song.

[singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ We have Hooverized on butter, [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ for [milk] we’ve only water, [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ and I haven’t seen a [steak] [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ in many a day.

[singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ For I’ve been broke so long, [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ I can only sing the song [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ of the workers and their [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ misery.

[singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ Oh, those beans, bacon [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ and gravy, [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ they almost drive me crazy, [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ I eat them til I see them in [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ my dreams.

[singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ And when I wake up [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ in the morning [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ and another day is dawning, [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ I thank the Lord for one more [singing Beans, Bacon and Gravy] ♪ mess of beans.

[Mina chuckling] DOUG: The great Woody Guthrie.

MINA: Woody Guthrie, right?

WILLEM: Pete [Seeger].

I love the guy.

MINA: Oh, yeah.

[birds calling] DOUG: Now, Willem, as you're aware, the Appalachian Trail comes through here.

WILLEM: That is true.

DOUG: One of the reasons you are aware of this fact is that you did the trail.

WILLEM: I did.

BOTH: Back in the day.

DOUG: As they say.

MINA: Now, was there any particular reason?

Was it like, because you can't get there from here or... DOUG: Because it was there?

WILLEM: I think you’ve probably heard a little bit of this story and that’s the reason you're leading me on!

MINA: Yes, I am.

WILLEM: I was deeply disappointed in love.

Crushed at the age of 20.

I thought, I'll show her.

MINA: So, how long did it take?

[Mina gasps] WILLEM: 79 days.

I was booking.

But I had buddies who met me along the way and hiked with me and ran with me, and it was very nice.

DOUG: Was she long forgotten by the time you finished?

WILLEM: No.

I saw her about a month ago at our 60th high school reunion.

DOUG: So the trail didn't... After all that, the trail did not work?

You're still glad you did it, but it didn't work for its intended purpose!

WILLEM: It worked.

I thought to myself, There's no woman in the world worth this much aggravation.

You know, it may be true.

I don't know, but anyway.

MINA: Well, then you eventually found the right woman.

So that's the most important.

WILLEM: She walked Oh, yeah.

She walked past the manhole.

I was digging in the streets of Syracuse and I chased her down the street and we were married about 12 weeks later.

MINA: Oh, my goodness, that's a fabulous story.

♪ WILLEM: Early in the program, I touched on another story Moby Dick.

The Mount Greylock area apparently attracted artists and writers Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick.

The story goes that Melville found inspiration for the tale from the mountain’s profile, which I guess resembles a whale.

I’ll believe that until someone of authority tells me otherwise!

♪ DOUG: We're going to be heading down here.

MINA: Wait a second.

Wait wait wait wait wait.

Start again.

Start again.

I'm playing with my hair!

I'm sweating.

DOUG: We're going to be heading down here to the campground and the Hopper.

People used to be able to drive park out on the main road and used to be able to drive down this road right to the campground.

They stopped that because I’ll let you finish.

MINA: For a couple of reasons, but the main reason... WILLEM: Wait for it!

[laughing] MINA: The main reason was for a little butterfly that is endangered, and this is the only place that it breeds.

It breeds on the north side of the mountain, which was earlier.

I said that was important that we were on the north side of the mountain.

It is called the Early Hairstreak, and apparently it has beautiful blue and green under wings, and then it's gray on top.

And unfortunately they're gone now.

They were here at the beginning of May Oh, yes.

Oh, no, no.

Not extinct.

WILLEM: H-A-R-E or H-A-I-R?

MINA: There you got me!

There you got me.

But when we talk to the ranger later, we can find out for sure.

But apparently, you know, they were getting hit.

I guess they like to lay their eggs in gravel, and it was just this is the only place that they that they breed.

DOUG: They spend a lot of time close to the ground, so the traffic was a problem.

WILLEM: What’s the name of them?

MINA: They’re called the... Early Hairstreak.

WILLEM: Okay.

WILLEM: I got it.

Say it three times fast.

MINA: No!

Early Hairstreak.

WILLEM: I got it.

DOUG: And then other reason, not as important, was since you could drive all the way down to the campground, some of it was disturbing the campers.

They have to lug their gear in now, but they get a lot more peace and quiet.

MINA: Exactly.

All right, so that's Sperry Road.

So, let's head on down.

WILLEM: We've made it already?

So, we've already come a mile?

MINA: Yes we have.

1.1 miles actually.

WILLEM: Holy Toledo.

DOUG: We don't mess around.

WILLEM: It took us only three hours.

[laughing] MINA: Well, let's go.

There's some fresh water down here and a beautiful water pump.

WILLEM: All right.

♪ Not long after Melville found inspiration here, clear-cut logging took away most of the trees.

That's when the conservation efforts began.

The trees are now back.

Many of the trails and the roads were built in the 1930s by the CCC.

♪ MINA: Ah.

Civilian This is it.

Willem, you were talking to me a little bit on the trail about the CCC.

So, it was started by President Roosevelt?

WILLEM: Yep, yep.

MINA: And it was to provide employment opportunities to improve the country's forests and recreational resources?

WILLEM: Quite military, the whole operation.

Mustard in the morning by companies and brigades and things and oftentimes the old military guys running the thing.

♪ Before we arrive at the spring to refresh our water supply, we stopped for a bandana break.

Here we go.

MINA: Ah, he’s got a nice one.

Well, how do we tie the knot?

[chuckling] I didn't mean that, Mrs.

Lange.

I'm serious.

WILLEM: Do you know how to tie a square knot?

MINA: No!

WILLEM: Oh, good God!

I got half your hair in here.

MINA: Oh, that's okay.

WILLEM: Good God, woman, get a haircut.

Okay.

MINA: I appreciate it.

WILLEM: It's like tying somebody else's tie.

MINA: I know.

Thank you!

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

♪ DOUG: So, we have come to the spring.

WILLEM: Take a look at this splash.

MINA: Oh, yes.

DOUG: This might take a while.

[pump creaking] I was just about to give up last time and all of a sudden.

MINA: Come on, babe.

You can do it.

You can do it.

[pump creaking] Get some good exercise.

There we go!

Oh, it's so cold.

DOUG: So cold when it comes out.

[pump creaking] MINA: Fantastic.

Willem, you next.

Douglas.

DOUG: Oh, I'm sorry!

♪ WILLEM: With water bottles full, we're off to the Hopper.

♪ MINA: Well, here we are.

This is the Hopper.

WILLEM: The old cirque.

MINA: Yep.

This is where we met Bud Hoover all those many years ago back in 1999.

WILLEM: Whoa.

MINA: So, pretty impressive.

I've got a picture here of when we were here of a small tree.

I don't know if it survived.

WILLEM: Spectacular!

♪ The Hopper is a cirque, or glacial valley the southernmost cirque in New England.

There are stands of red spruce old growth here, which makes the Hopper a National Natural Landmark.

♪ MINA: That's Doug.

That's Douglas back in 1999.

There he is today.

And as embarrassing as this is, that's me... from 1999.

And I have to find this tree.

This is the tree I need to find.

I've got to see where it is.

If it's gotten much bigger or if it made it through the winters.

Actually, if you look up there, that's the the veterans memorial right there.

And then the cell phone tower to the right, which was not here in 1999.

But that's what we're going to eventually end up.

We've got a sweet treat for you when you get up there.

♪ Kind of hard to tell.

WILLEM: Mina couldn't be sure if the tree in her old photograph still stands, but did feel the same old joy of simply being here.

♪ MINA: Honestly, to tell you the truth, I really think it was meeting Bud Hoover.

I think that was the draw.

I mean, afterwards.

But you just got a feeling from him that he really cared.

He really cared about this land and he wanted it to be preserved for future generations.

And he liked showing younger people the mountain and, you know, the joys of trying to preserve and conserve.

♪ WILLEM: Our next destination is March Cataract Falls.

After a period of dry weather, Mina and Doug can't promise we'll see much cataract, but it's worth the ike any time.

[water falling] DOUG: Willem, we're taking you up to MINA: Well, you got to come over here.

DOUG: a place that’ll be new to all of us.

WILLEM: Hold up.

I thought you'd been here before.

DOUG: Not to these falls.

MINA: We didn't make it all the way to the end of the falls.

DOUG: We're hoping that they're going to be flowing nice for you.

I imagine, you know, after a lot of rain, obviously.

But probably one of the best times would be just at the beginning of spring when the snow is melting.

But we'll get there and we'll see how it's flowing.

[water falling] WILLEM: That is the cascade of the cataract?

MINA: Apparently so.

I told you, I've never made it all the way to the falls before to these falls.

WILLEM: It looks like a kid crying.

That's about it.

MINA: I've let you down.

WILLEM: No, you haven't.

Just to be here in your presence is reward enough.

MINA: Now you're just being too kind.

WILLEM: Especially if you carry me out of here.

MINA: I will!

I promise.

[chuckling] [water falling] Wow!

Look.

WILLEM: Well, how do you do?

MINA: Hey, we did all right.

WILLEM: There really is water!

MINA: There is water, even though it's not March, Willem.

Look at this!

[water falling] WILLEM: Throughout the hike, Mina doesn't lose any of her enthusiasm.

It's obvious she loves it here.

MINA: I didn't do much hiking when I was younger.

I did a lot of horseback riding, trail riding up mountains in the Lake George area.

Lake George/Warrensburg area in New York.

So, I've always loved the mountains.

It's nice when you ride a horse and they do all the work.

[chuckling] But I've always loved it.

And Doug's always been a nature lover himself.

So, we try to go where we can to pretty places and see what we can.

And then we like to tell people about it and try to get them to come to pretty places.

[water falling] [birds calling] We are going to be hiking out of here, but there's still one more little surprise for you that we have in store.

WILLEM: Wait a minute.

MINA: You don’t have to walk there.

WILLEM: I don’t mind surprises but uh... yeah, I do.

[laughing] MINA: We don't have to walk there.

We're going to go up to the summit to Bascom Lodge.

And we have a little sweet treat planned for you at Bascom.

WILLEM: At Bascom?

Well, wouldn't that be nice?

MINA: Yes.

WILLEM: Is it drinkable or is it the someone you talk to?

MINA: It's edible and it's someone you can talk to.

And there could possibly be some nice cold drink there of some sort.

WILLEM: Oh that’d be nice.

We should do that.

MINA: Okay, let's go do it.

WILLEM: All right.

Vamanos.

♪ Next, we drove the rest of the way to the summit.

♪ Bascom Lodge welcomes us with a lunch prepared by Manager John Dudek.

Woah!

You're the manager from what?

May to October or something like that?

JOHN: The lodge is open from the middle of May to the middle of October or the first snowstorm.

WILLEM: Ah, yeah.

Okay.

After the first big snowstorm, how’s deputy got out of here?

JOHN: Carefully.

[laughing] Two years ago, we barely made it down the mountain.

WILLEM: Is that right?

JOHN: Yes.

WILLEM: Are you busy all the time up here in the summer?

JOHN: Oh, no.

Well, the early part of the season is slow, and then we go into the height of vacation, and it's very busy.

That's followed by the leaf season, which is very busy.

And our busiest single day is actually Columbus Day weekend.

Columbus Day Monday is our busiest single day.

WILLEM: Yeah, makes sense.

JOHN: Because the town of Adams has an event called The Ramble, and virtually thousands of people will climb the mountain and descend on the lodge.

WILLEM: There are rooms here for hikers and vacationers.

John lives in the best of two worlds.

He's here during the spring, summer, and fall.

Then he returns home to New York City for the winter where he works as a personal chef.

You like this life?

JOHN: Yeah, I do.

WILLEM: And you winter in Manhattan?

JOHN: Yeah.

It was a good flip for me.

[chuckling] WILLEM: That's great.

The sweet treat Mina promised came from the kitchen.

It's one of John's specialties.

MINA: And this is made by Brad?

JOHN: Made by Brad.

WILLEM: Holy catfish.

MINA: Oh my goodness.

WILLEM: Beautiful, John.

DOUG: Thank you so much.

WILLEM: Don't get up.

I know it's hard.

[laughing] [laughing] Trail names?

The Appalachian Trail runs right across Mount Greylock.

We happened to meet a couple of thru-hikers relaxing outside the lodge.

GRAVY: I’m Gravy.

WILLEM: Gravy!

GRAVY: Yes, sir.

We're thru-hiking from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin, Maine.

FRIEND: And same for me.

VIDEOGRAPHER: How's it been?

FRIEND: It's been great.

GRAVY: It’s been so much fun.

FRIEND: Yeah, and some great people and great experiences.

GRAVY: You wake up every day in the woods and just fool around with your buddies, work your way up a mountain, go to sleep on the top of that mountain.

You wake up the next morning, do it all over again.

It's a lot of fun.

♪ We've been looking forward to getting here.

Like, all through Massachusetts we’re like, Let's get to Greylock.

Greylock’s going to be fun.

We're going to get up to the top Greylock and we'll finally have another 360.

It'll be the first time we actually feel like we're in the mountains again.

♪ It was a nice climb up.

The trail’s really wide and nicely groomed, and the AMC or the ATC for this area takes really good care of Greylock.

I mean, every turn FRIEND: We saw the crew out there today.

GRAVY: Yeah, they were out there.

What was there?

At least nine of them?

Ten of them?

They were all in their late teens and they were they were putting in some bog bridges.

There was some ankle-deep mud, and they were just taking an old tree and turning it into a little bridge.

And you see a lot more of that on the bigger mountains.

There’s a lot more, you know, foot traffic through here than normal.

WILLEM: The hikers leave the lodge on their 600-mile-long hike to Mount Katahdin in Maine.

Our day ends in the shadow of the Veterans War Memorial Tower.

We have come once again to that time of the show that I like least the time we have to say goodbye.

But we've had a great day!

MINA: We had a fabulous day.

Really great.

WILLEM: We saw things I'd never heard of before.

[laughing] Places I'll never go again.

MINA: And you've told us some stories we will never forget.

WILLEM: That's true.

That's true.

DOUG: I agree.

You don’t want it to end.

WILLEM: You're right, I don't.

MINA: No, we don’t.

WILLEM: We got to say goodbye.

And we hope that we will see you again on Windows to the Wild.

♪