Mount Nonotuck, , is the northernmost peak of the

Mount Tom Range The Mount Tom Range is a traprock mountain range located in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts. It is part of the Metacomet Ridge that extends from Long Island Sound near New Haven, Connecticut, north through the Connecticut River Valle ...

traprock mountain Traprock or trap rock may refer to: * Trap rock, form of igneous rock exhibiting polygonal vertical fractures * Traprock Important Bird Area, Queensland, Australia * Trap Rock River, Michigan, USA * Walter E. Traprock, pseudonym of American archi ...

s located in the

Connecticut River Valley The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges at Long Island ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

and part of the larger

Metacomet Ridge The Metacomet Ridge, Metacomet Ridge Mountains, or Metacomet Range of southern New England is a narrow and steep fault-block mountain ridge known for its extensive cliff faces, scenic vistas, microclimate ecosystems, and rare or endangered plants. ...

which stretches from

Long Island Sound Long Island Sound is a marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches from the Eas ...

to nearly the

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provin ...

border. Rugged and considered scenic, the peak rises steeply from the river valley below. It is located within the town of

Holyoke Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, that lies between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,238. Located north of Springfiel ...

.''The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail Guide''. 9th Edition. The Appalachian Mountain Club. Amherst, Massachusetts, 1999. The

Metacomet-Monadnock Trail The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail (M&M Trail) is a hiking trail that traverses the Metacomet Ridge of the Pioneer Valley region of Massachusetts and the central uplands of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. Although less than from Boston and ...

, maintained by the Berkshire Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club, crosses Mt. Nonotuck, and a seasonal auto road (closed to vehicles indefinitely due to deteriorating conditions, hikers still welcome) climbs to a small parking lot just beneath the summit. During the winter, the auto road is often used for

cross country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreatio ...

.Ryan, Christopher. "Mt. Tom Reservation" 3rd ed. Map. Hamilton I. Newall Printing, Amherst, Massachusetts. 1994.

History

In 1861, following the success of the hotel on the summit of

Mount Holyoke Mount Holyoke, a traprock mountain, elevation , is the westernmost peak of the Holyoke Range and part of the 100-mile (160 km) Metacomet Ridge. The mountain is located in the Connecticut River Valley of western Massachusetts, and is the ...

across the river, William Street opened a summit hotel on Mount Nonotuck and named it ''Eyrie House.'' The hotel was closer to the Connecticut River and therefore more accessible than the hotel on Mount Holyoke, which spurred the owners of the latter establishment to build a rail line and a ferry dock from the river to the base of Mount Holyoke. The hotel burned down in 1901 when Street attempted to cremate two horses on the mountain and lost control of the fire, leaving only the cellar holes and the walls of the stone understory standing. The hotel was subsequently included in the Mount Tom Reservation managed by the

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Massachusetts ( Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' E ...

. The

Connecticut River Oxbow Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its ca ...

(now a lake), immortalized by the famous landscape painter

Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...

just before natural flooding and erosion separated it from the Connecticut River, is visible from the ruins.''Mt. Holyoke Range Historical Timeline''
Cited November 27, 2007.Roque, Oswaldo Rodriguez (1982). "The Oxbow" by Thomas Cole: Iconography of an American Landscape Painting. Metropolitan Museum Journal. pp. 63-7.

Geology and ecology

Mount Nonotuck, like much of the Metacomet Ridge, is composed of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

, also called traprock, a

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plat ...

rock. The mountain formed near the end of the

Triassic Period The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

with the

rifting In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-graben wi ...

apart of the

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

n continent from

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...

Lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or ...

welled up from the rift and solidified into sheets of strata hundreds of feet thick. Subsequent

faulting In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

and

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

activity tilted the strata, creating the cliffs and ridges of Mount Nonotuck.

Raymo, Chet Chet Raymo (born September 17, 1936 in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is a noted writer, educator and naturalist. He is Professor Emeritus of Physics at Stonehill College, in Easton, Massachusetts. His weekly newspaper column ''Science Musings'' appear ...

and Raymo, Maureen E. ''Written in Stone: A Geologic History of the Northeastern United States''. Globe Pequot, Chester, Connecticut, 1989. Hot, dry upper slopes, cool, moist ravines, and mineral-rich ledges of basalt talus produce a combination of

microclimate A microclimate (or micro-climate) is a local set of atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, often with a slight difference but sometimes with a substantial one. The term may refer to areas as small as a few squ ...

ecosystems on the mountain that support plant and animal species uncommon in greater Massachusetts.Farnsworth, Elizabeth J.
Metacomet-Mattabesett Trail Natural Resource Assessment.
" 2004. PDF wefile cited November 1, 2007. (See

for more information on the geology and ecosystem of Mount Nonotuck).

References

External links

Metacomet-Monadnock Trail

Mount Tom State Reservation map

Appalachian Mountain Club

Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nonotuck, Mount Mount Tom Range Geography of Holyoke, Massachusetts Mountains of Massachusetts Mountains of Hampden County, Massachusetts

History

Geology and ecology

See also

References

External links