Exploring October Mountain State Forest from Stanley Road in Becket with snow falling, great parking at the junction of Watson and Stanley Road gets you into the lesser known trails for the Becket/Washington corner. We discovered that after the fact, we parked on Stanley Road next to Shaker Mill Brook. We first visited the Shaker Saw Mill on Shaker Brook along Stanley Road right at the town border, then made our way to a cellar hole across from gate 22 and continued our way down Stanley to the Watson Road intersection. Watson Road becomes Watson Branch Road on the 1941 DCR state forest map, its known as the Guerilla Trail now and connects with the Appalachian Trail (not shown on current DCR map) The Watson cellar hole is here, and a fire retention pond. We chose a short exploration route here and took the cut thru shown on the modern day map, which took us to the utility corridor then back on the Vagabond Trail to Watson Road seeing another fire pond. The trails here are not blazed so bring your gps because they are shown on GAIA and All Trails. Next trip will be to explore more of the Guerilla and Vagabond trails.

#hikethehilltownhistory
#hikethehilltowns with the #westernmasshilltownhikers #discoverthehilltowns #visitthehills #hilltownhistory #flashhike #intheberkshires #nature #adventure #history #hiking #outdooradventures #visittheberkshires #mylocalMA #visitma #hilltownhikers
Visit our blog for all of our adventures! We are on Instagram TikTok Pinterest Twitter YouTube Meetup @hilltownhikers
become a member at www.hilltownhikers.com
A 501c3 Massachusetts Non-Profit Organization