The rock that makes up the mountain of Dry Hill in New Marlborough was formed from sandy sediment hundreds of millions of years ago. As the Taconic and Berkshire Mountains formed, the sedimentary sandstone was changed to quartzite. The same pressures that changed the rock to quartzite also folded and lifted the layered beds, turning the horizontal strata into vertical layers. As faults formed in the rock, they created a vertical, rather than horizontal, drainage pattern. The rain that falls percolates down the cracks and fissures and into the mountain rather than running off in streams. Dry Hill isn’t very dry farther down its slope, where the water that drained from the upper slopes bursts out of the ground in springs.

Dry Hill was important to the early history of New Marlborough, in part because of its white rocks. The earliest settlers had difficulty finding building stone in the area, so they quarried the quartzite cliffs of Dry Hill to supply the need. A 2.5 mile in and back trail with option to come out on the Sugar Maple lined old road, the trail is uniquely dry because of the vertical drainage, so bring water for the dogs!

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