Since 1987, with a scant handful of exceptions, a wonderful group of friends have gathered on Memorial Day weekend for a same-time-next-year event at Stump Sprouts in the Berkshires. Though we’re charter members of this group, due to our summer travels (up to 2019) and COVID (2020-2021), we’ve missed this annual rendezvous for the past few years. Since we’re in New England for this spring and summer, we were filled with joy when we learned the MemDay SS Weekend was on this year, and there was room for us to rejoin!
Stump Sprouts is a funky, rustic B&B at a cross-country ski touring center near the top of a ridge in Hawley, MA, deep in the Berkshires. Just being there is a stunning experience. Sitting on the patio is everybody’s fave considering the view, birds, natural landscaping and awesome vibe. And access to the lightly traveled (and hilly!) backroads for bicycling and hundreds of X-C ski trails that are great for hiking makes it the perfect spot for this crowd as the long weekend days are mostly filled with such outdoor activities, punctuated of course by gastronomic celebrations and ongoing conversations centered around mealtimes.
Anticipating withdrawal when we began traveling, we purposefully included Stump Sprouts in our inaugural trip in 2016. Lloyd and Suzanne, the owners of Stump Sprouts, have become friends over the years. It was fun seeing their kids Kate and Nick growing up one year at a time, and we were thrilled to visit Nick at his home in Fairbanks in 2019.
For a couple of reasons, hiking was our chosen activity this year. On a potentially rainy day, a subset of the full group opted for a short-ish hike on the Hoosic Ridge to Spruce Hill with an awesome view of Mt Greylock (highest peak in MA) when not totally socked in by clouds. Another day, this one bright and sunny, Doug and I strategically chose another ridge hike along the Taconic Range that kept us just south of Mt Greylock, which we anticipated would be a super busy place (the summit is accessible by an auto road and this was a long weekend). We were happy with this choice.
On the final day we lingered a bit, hanging with our friends before we all departed and headed off on our separate adventures, and we took advantage of the ski touring trails for a hike to a favorite spot on Lone Boulder Hill.
As we’re hoping to resume adventure travels next summer, we may miss Stump Sprouts again next year. However, our hearts and minds will always be with our friends in the Berkshires on Memorial Day…
Here is an album with a few more photos.