Hopkins Forest

Hopkins Forest is a 2500 acre reserve extending into Massachussets, Vermont, and New York. There are 15 miles of hiking trails; most popular are a 1.6 mile lower loop and a 2.6 mile upper loop that start just past the Rosenburg Center. Bicycles are prohibited. These trails are groomed for cross-country skiing in the winter (when there's sufficient snow), though they can be dangerous in icy conditions for inexperienced skiiers because of the long downhill stretches.

Getting there

From the Williams Campus, go north on Route 7. Turn left on Bulkley Street (0.3 miles past the rotary); follow Bulkley Street for 0.75 miles until it ends at the junction with Northwest Hill Road. Turn right onto Northwest Hill Road. The entrance to the forest is 100 yards down the road and is marked by a wooden sign.

Estimated walking time: 15-25 minutes

Estimated driving times: 5 minutes

Facilities

Rosenburg Center

The Rosenburg Center is the main building just inside the entrance to the forest and hosts many of the events that take place in the forest.

Canopy walkway

The HMF Canopy Walkway was the first in North America, though a half-dozen others have sprung up since then. Meg Lowman '76 [1] was instrumental in its creation.

Outing Club cabin

Events

The Hopkins Memorial Forest sponsors many events throughout the year that are open to the public, usually for free, and are announced in the Daily Messages or by the CES listserve. Especially popular are the yearly Hopkins Memorial Forest Fall Festival held in late September and Maple Sugar Days in early April. There are also opportunities to participate in banding owls, finding salamanders and frogs, and animal tracking.

Fall Festival

The fall festival gathers locally skilled people to demonstrate and teach skills like shake-splitting and log cutting, and to share homemade treats of the season like hot cider and apple butter on homemade bread (for the past many years brought and doled out by the same very jovial woman). Trained students open the canopy walkway to allow people of all ages to walk a rope bridge high in the trees. Some years have had live contradance music played by local musicians in the old Moon barn.