Upper 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 trail crosses Race Brook (no bridge) and begins climbing earnestly from here. The upper falls is encountered at just under one mile from the trailhead, just around the corner from where the trail crosses the creek a second time. The only way to obtain clear views of the entire falls is to cross the creek.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. Upper Race Brook Falls is the second largest in the series of falls on Race Brook. Here the creek pours into a narrow cleft in a cliff, chuting down in a crack no more than 5 feet wide in most places, falling a total of 76 feet. At the very top of the falls is appears there may be two streams separately feeding in at the same spot, but it just as easily could be that Race Brook splits around a rock or protrusion of some sort. Russell Dunn's excellent Berkshire Region Waterfall Guide indicates there may be a fifth fall upstream from this waterfall as well, but we did not proceed further during our initial survey of the area due to time constraints. 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.