Ice Glen

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The Ice Glen is a grotto in the southeast area of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The park is essentially a lush, untended, romantic landscape consisting of piled rocks thick with mosses. The Ice Glen derives its name from the fact that, because the valley is naturally refrigerated, ice can persist there even during the summer months.

Near the entrance stands Laurel Hill, which is very popular with visitors.^{[citation needed]}

The Konkapot Brook runs through the southern part of the park; Evergreen Hill rises on the south side of it.

[edit] Appearances in literature

In Moby-Dick, in the chapter "A Bower in the Arsacides," the narrator invokes the Icy Glen as the apotheosis of verdant nature run wild: "It was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of the Icy Glen; the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap; the industrious earth beneath was as a weaver's loom … " Herman Melville was living not too far from Pittsfield when he wrote the novel, and he is known to have visited the Icy Glen on at least one occasion.

Coordinates: 42°15′43″N 73°18′32″W / 42.262, -73.309