Sometimes we find hidden gems. Sometimes our guests do. Our blog is starting to sub-divide into larger themes…..Celebrity Guests at Hampton Terrace is one…but here is another: Berkshire Secrets.
I am occasionally asked if there is a place to ice skate in the Berkshires. Nope, I reply. And that is based on the knowledge that many parents drive their kids to Springfield multiple times per week for hockey practice. And there were plans to build a rink north of Lenox, which never raised adequate funding.
An exterior rink is a maintenance nightmare…always needing to be scraped of fresh snow and groomed.
So it is with great pleasure that I share that our guests last weekend, John Seeberg and Kathleen Griffin ventured out into snow-covered back roads and found ICE SKATING. These are their pictures.
Monterey is located west of Great Barrington, less than 30 minutes from us. It consists of not much more than an intersection and a general store. It apparently has a volunteer fire department, because they seem to be responsible for this rink.
From the pictures, it seems that this is basically a metal warehouse with the floor flooded. Since the temperature has not ventured above freezing since November, the ice is natural and the roof keeps it a usable rink. There is a warming room and ice skates on a shelf for anyone to borrow. How local is that?
And a sign that asks people to turn off the lights when they leave.
This reminds me of when we lived in Tyringham…the next town over from Monterey. They have a “swimming hole” that is also volunteer-maintained. I tell people all the time that we still live in Norman Rockwell’s America.
Today is my sister-in-law’s birthday, and we told her we’d take her ice skating to check it out.
