Lower Race Brook Falls

The waterfalls of Race Brook are accessed from the Race Brook Trail, which begins along MA 41 about 2.8 miles north of the Connecticut / Massachusetts border, or about 5 miles south of the junction of Routes 41 and 23 in South Egremont. The parking area is large and well signed so as to be difficult to miss. The trail climbs gently for the first half mile before briefly leveling off then gradually descending to Race Brook at the base of Lower Race Brook Falls just under two-thirds of a mile from the parking area. The view from the trail's crossing is slightly obstructed by a couple trees, but scrambling up the rocks to the base of the upper tier of the falls easily yields a more open view.Race Brook is a moderately small stream which drains from a small basin nestled in between the summits of Mounts Everett and Race in the heart of the Berkshire Mountains. As the stream cascades down to the Housatonic Valley, it produces a very nice series of waterfalls in a one-after-the-other chain. Each fall is separated from the next by just enough distance that we’ve opted to consider them to be separate waterfalls rather than one congruent series of falls. The lowermost falls of the series is far and away the largest and most impressive of the bunch. The falls consist of two distinct steps dropping a total of 115 feet, making it one of the tallest waterfalls in Massachusetts. The upper tier veils 94 feet over a broad cliff face, while the lower tier tumbles over a fractured step just below, and then the creek cascades down among several large boulders before resuming a more placid path at the valley floor. Race Brook is not a terribly large stream by any standards. The basin feeding into the stream above the falls covers an area of just over half of a square mile, ranging in elevation from about 1600 feet up to 2600 feet at the summit of Mount Everett. Despite the small drainage area, because the region receives a steady diet of precipitation throughout the year, the falls will often present themselves well enough – though during the summer months it may be reduced to a trickle, especially during droughts.