Mass fire towers

One of the many lists I'm working on is the Massachusetts fire towers. I've climbed nearly all of the towers in Western Mass. On Friday I cut out of work after 1/2 day and headed toward Northfield to set the course for the Saturday race. I stopped at Mt Grace in Warwick for a climb. The view was very good and the climb wasn't too bad with a fair amount of snow except on the fire tower road.

View of Mt Monadnock from Mt Grace

I then set a course at Nortfield with a little more than four miles of great nearly spring conditions. There were very few bare spots and only a couple of icy descents. The final stop of the day was Mt Toby. I had gone by the trailhead last year when town-bagging Sunderland but didn't have enough time to climb the mountain. At 3 PM the sun was high and it was about 50 degrees. The trails were a bit tough to follow but I eventually found the telephone trail which climbed steadily to the tower. I was surprised to meet a couple of hikers who had just had a late lunch at the picnic table on top. I quickly climbed the tower took some pics and headed down. So after about 15 miles of running and 3,000' of climb/descent I wiped out walking along the road to my car! D'oh!!

The 7-Sisters course looks "flat" from Mt Toby.