Williamstown, MA, boasts brand-new MTB trails on Berlin Mountain

When Bill MacEwen moved to Williamstown, Massachusetts, he was surprised by what he found. Or, actually, what he didn’t find. Despite miles of rolling hills, densely forested areas, and multiple river valleys, the area had very few mountain bike trails.

Thanks to the quick organization of a new local trail group, Williamstown is now home to roughly five miles of singletrack. And more are on the way.

Mountain biking comes to Williamstown

“When I got [to Williamstown], there were no mountain bike trails,” MacEwen told us. “Which was crazy to me because it’s just beautiful communities surrounded by mountains. Tons of people are into the outdoors, but there are no mountain bike trails.”

MacEwen grew up in Canada, where he raced mountain bikes throughout the late 90s. After racing, he continued to pursue his passion for riding, eventually getting into trail building. He took different opportunities to work on a multitude of trails and race courses, building some for national-level races and even consulting on a World Cup track.

For MacEwen, trails were a way he could give back to the community he loves. A couple of years ago, MacEwen and friends formed Purple Valley Trails, a Massachusetts chapter of the New England Mountain Bike Association (NEMBA). 

Purple Valley’s mission was simple: provide Williamstown with singletrack. While the area has many miles of hiking trails, most don’t allow mountain biking. And while there might be a trail here and there that does allow bikes, no trails have been built with MTB in mind. 

MacEwen said social trails would occasionally appear, but would be shut down just as quickly as they emerged. Because of this, some took to building trails on private land, meaning that riding these trails often required knowing someone who knew someone.

Due to the lack of existing trails and minor setbacks with land managers, it was easy to assume that Williamstown just didn’t want mountain biking trails. But MacEwen told us that simply wasn’t the case.

“We started actually talking to the landowners and to the town [about trails], and they were like, ‘Oh, no, we would love that.’”

While the assumption may have been that Williamstown didn’t want or was against mountain bike trails, the reality was that nobody had pushed for them. Purple Valley changed that.

The Purple Valley Trails project

“What really kind of kick-started things moving fast was that one of the guys on our board applied for and won the IMBA Trail Accelerator Grant,” MacEwen said.

Purple Valley was awarded one of five Trail Accelerator Grants in 2024. This shifted things into high gear, and the trail organization began speaking with different landowners and managers. Fortunately, a roughly 1,200-acre parcel of land was pieced together, thanks to Williams College, the Williamstown Rural Lands Committee, and the Berkshire Natural Resources Council.

The land allocated for this new trail system is situated on the northern slopes of Berlin Mountain, which rises nearly 3,000 feet above sea level. Berlin Mountain is one of the tallest peaks in Massachusetts; however, there is one small problem with that claim — its summit is actually across the border in New York. 

Regardless of the state, Berlin Mountain’s eastern slopes are in Massachusetts, and the people of Williamstown claim it as their own. The new trails also cross borders, with half the system in New York and the other half in Massachusetts.

“In the very early days, we spent a lot of time walking Berlin Mountain,” MacEwen told us,  “envisioning what it could be.”

Building MTB trails on Berlin Mountain

MacEwen told us that IMBA played a crucial role in the earliest stages of trail development at Berlin Mountain. Not only did they award Purple Valley the Trail Accelerator Grant, but they also helped the trail org develop initial concepts and the overall project structure. 

From there, Purple Valley started on a proof of concept trail — and named it such. At roughly a quarter of a mile, this green loop allowed the organization and volunteers to get shovels in the dirt right away. MacEwen said the trail was dug entirely by hand and is beginner-friendly, featuring quite a few pumps and rollers — envision a long pump track through the woods.

Then things started moving fast. “We opened it and we got people in the community riding their bikes,” he told us. “And that all happened in a couple of months.”

Carrying their momentum from Proof of Concept, Purple Valley quickly took on a more ambitious project — a climbing and descending trail. The climbing trail, named “Learning Curves,” snakes its way nearly a mile up Berlin’s eastern slopes, climbing 350 feet. Learning Curves connects to a descending-only trail dubbed “203,” with a solid mix of flow and tech. 

203 loses its elevation more quickly than Learning Curves, as it drops back down in half a mile. Both trails are intermediate and were completely hand-dug, creating a blue loop on the new trail system’s western edge.

“Around that time, we won another grant,” MacEwen said. “This grant was from the Massachusetts Office of Outdoor Recreation, and it was $50,000 — so a pretty good chunk of change.”

With that money, Purple Valley was able to hire Backslope Trail Building to add mileage at Berlin Mountain. Backslope arrived in Williamstown in April and began working, adding approximately three miles to the trail system — a green loop, the beginnings of a blue loop, and a black descending trail.

Cirque, the blue trail Backslope built, will eventually form a roughly four-mile loop around the valley in which the trail system is situated. For now, it climbs off the Green Wave loop, providing access to the top of 205, a black DH flow trail featuring mandatory doubles and gaps.

MacEwen said much of the northeast is saturated with blue trails. While they aren’t skipping the blues, it is important to Purple Valley to have something for everyone.

More to come

Purple Valley is just getting started at Berlin Mountain, and additional funding for the trails is coming in. MacEwen shared that they’ve recently won a $25,000 Woodland Forest Grant from Williamstown. And, the day before Singletracks connected with MacEwen, Purple Valley was awarded an $89,000 grant from MassTrails. 

But it isn’t just the grants that are keeping this new wave of trail building alive in Williamstown. MacEwen shared that the community is stepping up in a big way through donations to the organization’s Next Five Miles campaign.

“I think we’re looking at like $20,000,” he said. “But more than that, we’ve had like 35 donors.” 

People in Williamstown are giving hundreds and thousands of dollars at a time to gain access to mountain bike trails. For Purple Valley Trails, seeing the support of their community has been truly humbling. But it’s more than just trails — it is connection. There is something about mountain biking that brings people together and forms a community. When MacEwen moved to Williamstown, he knew “his people” were out there; he just couldn’t find them.

“I would ask myself, ‘what’s missing?’” MacEwen said. “It’s the trailhead. The trailhead is where it happens.”