When I was a kid growing up in Massachusetts our family frequently went to an incredible rock formation called Purgatory Chasm. I remember the towering granite walls with trees growing out of them high in the air. You didn’t really hike the trail, but clambered over huge jagged rocks while following strips of paint suggesting the path of least resistance. I remember thinking that Purgatory was great because it was clearly dangerous – very dangerous. There were deep caves and treacherous precipices and, as far as I could see, no safety railings, no park rangers and no emergency doctors or nurses on site. I went back to Purgatory last weekend just to see if I had made the whole thing up. (Continued below)

I can now report that the 14,000 year old rock formation is still there, in Sutton, Massachusetts, exactly where I left it almost half a century ago. The entrance now includes a neatly landscaped entrance with lots of parking, clear signage, and a visitor center with clean bathrooms. There still are no railings or anyone in charge that I could see. There is no admission which may indicate that all visitors are there at their own risk.

The place was mobbed on a Sunday afternoon with a wonderfully diverse population of hikers, campers and picnickers. Most of the things from my childhood have shrunk dramatically. My parent’s house and the fallen tree I used to climb on have been reduced by the shrink ray of time. The camp I built way out in the woods is scarcely 15 feet from the house.

But Purgatory Chasm still looms large. The 70-foot cliffs are as deadly and according to my quick Internet search, people really die there. I suppose it was silly to think that a park created in the Ice Age would be gone. Not gone, I guess, but closed by the state of Massachusetts in our super-safety conscious and litigious society. But here it is. They even allow dogs.

The last time I went to Purgatory I was scarred for life, not by the treacherous rocks, but by my cousin. We were at the playground and he was on the downside of the see-saw and I was on the up-side. Geometrically I was probably at no more than a 45 degree angle, but in my memory I am looking straight down at him from what seems like 2,000 feet in the air. My little sweaty hangs grip the metal bar and my skinny white legs are wrapped around the painted wooden plank. That’s when my cousin stepped off. I made a bone-crushing landing and rolled onto the tarred playground howling. I’ve never trusted anyone since.

It was no big deal talking about a weekend at Purgatory when I lived in Massachusetts. Every kid went there. But when I moved to New Hampshire and told kids where I had gone over the weekend, some were open-mouthed. I guess those were the Catholic kids.

"What’s it like there?" they asked.

"Oh, it’s really neat," I explained. "It’s full of dark caves and high cliffs and all covered in boulders. My brother Brian saw a super-huge spider."

I don’t think I knew there was another Purgatory until I read Dante in college. That’s when I finally got the joke. Presbyterians aren’t the funniest Christians on the block, and we don’t get out much.

My wife and I didn’t walk the whole trail on my return visit. We missed the rock formations called "Fat Man’s Misery" and "The Coffin." We stayed out of the caves and away from cliff edges. I was happy enough just knowing that I didn’t imagine the whole thing and learning that I could still climb around on the rocks without injury.

The only real difference was the surface of the rocks themselves. Most are polished smooth from contact with untold millions of human feet and hands and buttocks. The glassy surfaces glisten along the quarter mile trail. That’s all the impact we’ve made on this marvelous gash in the skin of the Earth. It was so nice to learn that we have not wrecked it with fully accessible walkways and safety ramps. If anything, the slippery polished rocks are more dangerous than ever.

There is a sign at the entrance suggesting that only physically fit visitors should venture ahead. It does not say "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" as Dante suggests. If anything, a walk through this Purgatory made me hopeful. I braved it once again, and I survived.

I did not dare venture onto the playground, however. I could hear the screams of children echoing from that tortuous realm. Some childhood places are just too frightening to revisit.  

© Copyright 2010 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.

PURGATORY CHASM State Park web page

Photos by J. Dennis Robinson , 2010