Mount Greylock State Reservation

First - this is closed for the 2020 camping season due to Covid 19.  Also, NOT to be confused with Mt Greylock Campsite Park, which is a private campground with hook-ups outside the park.

The Sperry Road campground offers a mixture of group and individual campsites as a reward for a short hike from the campers parking lot or down Sperry Rd. During the winter you can access it via snowmobile or skis. Sites are large and generally secluded, each offering a bear box set apart from the campsite itself as black bears live in the park. There are a one or more clean, centrally located composting toilets in each section.  The Chimney Group site provides a large lean-to, a nice respite if you're caught on a rainy weekend! Upper Group and Stoney Ledge also have lean-tos. The group sites accommodate 5-12 people. There's a large picnic pavilion midway through the campground, too. 

The campsite numbers are on the bear boxes. 

Depending on the time of year, there are a couple of nearby waterfalls a short hike from the campground. Trails also leave here and head to the summit of Greylock or to the Stony Ledge Overlook.

My friends and I did this as an overnight hike, just so we could take our time getting there and enjoy the summit. It's a pretty short hike from the parking area up to the site. I'd guess under two miles, which parts can get quite steep. We brought our dogs as well.

All the sites were lined up down a pretty straight road, on both sides of the road. You can evidently drive up there too but what fun is that? The bathrooms were huge, and had a water pump outside of them or near by. Every site had a picnic table as well which is nice. Lots of trees so we could easily put tarps up over our tent and table. There is a trail at the far end of the camp area, leading to the summit we took after setting up our base.

I loved the trail going up from the camp area, lots of cool picture perfect areas. Nice variety of terrain. The dogs loved it. There were a few spots we had to cross the road where people drive up to the summit. Once we got up there it was more commercial than expected, but cool none the less. You still feel a sense of accomplishment at having hiked up. On the plus s side, there is a small restaurant. If it's rainy or you don't feel like camp cooking have at it!

Views at the top are of course breathtaking for the nature lovers (like us) out there! A bit crowded for my liking but hey, it's crowded because it's awesome. The hike back down to our site seemed to take no time at all. We refilled our water bottles from their hand water pumps (can be a workout!). Abundance of camp wood was already sitting at our site, not sure if that is normal or someone else was cool and left it. We had a great evening, and hiked out in the morning after breakfast. Overnight, we heard owls! All the camp areas looked nice, room for tents and hammocks. Hope to go again before I'm too old to carry all the gear LOL.

The hike in was a fairly easy 1.3 to the csmpground. The sites were huge and spread out. Although we could kind of see our neighbors if we tried, we were far enough away that we weren't looking at them all weekend. SO PEACEFUL! Uou will hear the bard owls call at night and not much else. Sites 11, 8, and 9 are pretty set back and private.

Amenities include:

1. The rangers deliver wood to your site
2. The bear lockers are roomy and clean and could double as storage to keep items out of the rain (highly recommend reviewing being "bear aware" as we had a sighting in our neighboring site and not all other campers are bear smart and left food/trash out even though rangers gave reminders).
3. The composting toilets were so spacious and clean you could sleep on the floor in an emergency!
4. Each site has a fire ring and a picnic table.

There are plenty of options for hiking including two nearby falls, a section of the AT, and of course the summit. The summit lodge offers breakfast & lunch. Although abut pricey, the large fire place, friendly hiker conversations, and a warm cup of coffee brightened our rainy day. They also do dinner by reservation. The summit is accessible by hiking or car. They have educational and entertainment programs scheduled throughout the weekend.