Recreation
The summit automobile road is open from April through November, and the hiking trails year-round. The Summit House is open weekends and holidays from Memorial Day through Columbus Day. A number of hiking trails also cross the mountain, most notably the 110 mile (180k) Metacomet-Monadnock Trail and the 47-mile (76 km) Robert Frost Trail.
Every year in early fall, since 1838, students from nearby Mount Holyoke College participate in Mountain Day. On that day, at the sound of ringing bells from Abbey Chapel on a random Autumn morning, all classes are cancelled and students hike to the summit of Mount Holyoke.
The area around the summit house has many picnic tables. Also, there are trailheads and memorials. One notable memorial is that to the men aboard a transport plane that crashed into the flank of the mountain. On May 27, 1944, a B-24, flying a night training mission out of Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee, Massachusetts, crashed into a cliff on the side of the range, killing all ten crewmen. A memorial plaque on the summit of Mount Holyoke eulogizes the disaster. The crash site itself is a half mile away toward the southwest.
The views from the top of the mountain are some of the best in Massachusetts. They have inspired artists and poets. The nearby Connecticut River Oxbow (now a lake), immortalized by the famous landscape painter Thomas Cole just four years before natural flooding and erosion separated it from the Connecticut River, was composed from sketches the artist made from the summit of Mount Holyoke in 1836. To the south are the cities of Holyoke, Springfield, and Hartford. To the north are the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and mountains in Sunderland. To the east is the Holyoke Range and the town of South Hadley. To the west are the foothills of the Berkshires, the Connecticut River, and Northampton.
Read more about this topic: Mount Holyoke
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