Stone Hill Trails

We awoke to the pouring rain. It was "really early outside," as Sam likes to say, but at least we had all had a decent night's sleep. Nothing like racing around after her older cousin to tire Sam out! :-) We hemmed and hawed, but with my mom on board with watching Sam for a bit, we finally decided we should just go out and get our run in before Mim's service. That way we would ensure we got some miles in, and not have to worry about fitting things in later in the day. Besides, the forecast was calling for rain all day, so there was no excuse there either.

I had done a bit of googling about trails in the Williamstown area, and Ryan had asked a friend of his for recommendations too. The Stone Hill trails behind the Clark - the art museum in town - were mentioned in both cases, and as the Clark is only about 1/2 mile from where we are staying, we decided to head there for a little exploring. The official trail system isn't long, but it does appear you could go for miles and miles by going off on some of the connecting trails. As we didn't have a map, and didn't have much time, we mostly stuck with the signed trails, which wound up and up through the woods behind the museum, climbing Stone Hill, and then wandering down through some wide open pastures that surely would have good views in good weather. It was cold and rainy, and the woods were dark, but there was some fun singletrack, and some logging road-type running too. The trail cut through the pasture was wide and slick, and we sloshed through the puddles and tried to avoid the cow patties. There was a fair amount of climbing as we ran up to the stone bench twice by slightly varied routes. We only got in 4.5 miles but it felt like more than enough for they day. I can't say my body felt great, but it was good to get a run in with Ryan, and it's always nice to explore new trails!