The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail (M-M Trail) is a long distance hiking footpath, maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club-Berkshire Chapter Trails Committee and other volunteers. It is approximately 114 miles from the blue-blazed Metacomet Trail on the Connecticut state line to Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire. These pages are designed to allow those who have never experienced the M-M trail to get a taste of its beauty, and for newcomers and old hands to offer observations on its condition.
Our Trails Committee maintains the Metacomet-Monadnock trail from the Connecticut border to New Hampshire, as well as miscellaneous other trails in the region.
The M-M trail was originally laid out by the late Prof. Walter M. Banfield of the University of Massachusetts starting in the late 1950s, and has been evolving ever since. It passes through some of the prettiest landscape in Western Massachusetts, including the Mt. Tom State Reservation, Mt Holyoke Range and Skinner State Parks, and numerous other state, municipal, and land trust properties. Today, over half of its length crosses public lands. The trail is marked or “blazed” with white painted rectangles on trees and rocks and supplemental white, metal, diamond-shaped signs affixed to trees and poles at road crossings and other trail intersections.
Before you use the M-M trail, please check our online trail guide for updates on trail conditions, relocations, and hike suggestions. A guidebook, now in its tenth edition, is available from New England Cartographics (see ordering info). The trail descriptions on this site are excerpted from the guidebook. As such, they are incomplete, and should not be used for route finding but rather as synopses to help you choose a section(s) to hike.
In June 2001, the National Park Service accepted AMC-Berkshire’s application to have sections 6-8 and 16-18 certified as a “National Recreational Trail.” This certification applies only to those sections of trail located on Mass DCR/State Park, Forest, or Reservation property. The designation also applies on the Mt. Holyoke Range ridgeline to sections of trail on land owned by the towns of South Hadley, Hadley, and Amherst. In Franklin County, the designation also applies to the trail section on land owned by Northeast Utilities as well as the substantial DCR State Forest holdings. For more information please visit the National Recreation Trails web site.
If you are a landowner concerned about allowing hikers to use this or any other trail on your land, please read information for private landowners.
