The Spruces
Visitors traveling on MA-2 between Williamstown and North Adams pass two white lion statues resting on high pedestals. The great cats flank a dirt road lined with spruce trees. When deciding whether to travel down that dirt road, your imagination may fill with expectations of finding a decrepit estate waiting at the end.

If you turn and travel down that dirt road, you’ll soon find yourself immersed in what is obviously the grid of an old neighborhood. Everything was clearly abandoned and razed in the not-so-distant past.

This land was a mobile home park called the Spruces prior to 2011. The municipality of Williamstown condemned the community after the Hoosic River, which flows behind it, overflowed its banks during Tropical Storm Irene. The waters destroyed all 226 homes. The land is now an odd park that hasn’t shaken off the essence of its former inhabitants.

The dirt roads of The Spruces are wheelchair accessible and can be used for birding from a vehicle.

Linear Park
Linear Park is agricultural land with public access that the town of Williamstown leases to a farmer. In 2021 a paved bike trail was constructed next to the Hoosic River in Linear Park.

The HikingProject website has descriptions and maps of hikes at Linear Park.