The one constant were the boulders.
Some of the boulders were huge; some of them just seemed huge because I was so young. I loved climbing them, finding footholds and pulling myself up, even if there were an easier, more practical way to do so on another face of the rock. I guess it could be called early freestyle rock climbing, the most dangerous of which would result in a broken arm or a fat lip for the less capable or the more daring amongst us.
We created trails through the woods, over and around rocks and trees, connecting houses on our plot of land at the end of the street. We used the rocks and boulders as forts, houses, horses, cars, dinosaur parks . . . anything our minds could imagine, those rocks could be.
When I moved to a more civilized neighborhood in a different state, it was nice to still see rocks and boulders in the nearby state forests, but, alas, the only rocks in my actual yard were from a well-constructed and very suburbanized stone wall covered with prickly rosebushes. I turned into a suburban teenager and went about my suburban coming-of-age and did my suburban camping thing and grew into a suburban adult. The "rock-iest" thing about my life turned into my behavior.
Two things I have always been -- a bit of a loner, and terribly restless. If I am stuck living in the same place for too long, I'll rearrange rooms and furniture and change out curtains and bedspreads until I can pretend I'm somewhere else. Periodically I need to get in my car and go off on my own for hours or a day or longer. People say, "Oh, if I'd known you were going, I would've gone with you." I understand this; I also understand that's precisely why they did not know and I didn't tell them.
I am off on one of these all-day selfish misadventures when I decide to stop at a place about an hour from my house - a place with a name like so many others in this country: Purgatory Chasm. I have no idea what to expect other than my Google investigation: short trails, seemingly harmless gradients, relatively safe online reviews, and only $5 to park. I figure it's a family-type hike through some tame and uneventful trails.
But, when I get there, I see that one of the trails, maybe a third of a mile long or so, goes right through the chasm. The chasm itself is maybe seventy feet at its deepest, but it's kind of impressive to be right here in my stomping area, under my nose and totally off my radar for my entire life. Best of all, though, it's loaded with boulders and I can climb through, over, around, above, under, between -- any and every damn preposition -- those rocks.
A woman with older kids catches my wide eyes and slight grin. She sidles up to me and says, "First time here?" I nod soundlessly. "Impressive, isn't it? And worth the five bucks!"
I spend the next ninety minutes climbing through the chasm then up and over it, then back down into it, only once worried because the arrows to the trail indicate that I am supposed to slip my fat arse into a crevice and shimmy my way through for about fifteen feet. Instead, I opt to crab-walk down a rock face, both my hands and feet engaged in keeping myself from smashing over the edge, kind of like my childhood but on a small dose of steroids.
I honestly didn't know how much I missed being a little kid in the big woods with some sizeable rocks to climb until I came to Purgatory Chasm and became a big kid with some bigger rocks to climb. I am no serious "rock climber", though. I'm not hanging on any of those seventy-foot sidewalls or attempting any free-climbs to defy my own mortality, but, damn, this is so fun.
When I reach the end, which is back at the beginning of the chasm, a guy about my age comes by to start his trek and says, "Good climb?" I nod. The he says, "You okay?" Yes, I tell him, explaining that the ninety-degree weather and climbing along the top ridge in the direct sun just make me look like a wet mongrel.
There are more trails, and I'll be back again on a day when it's not scorching hot and try them out, although, if I know me, it will be frightfully tough to pull me off the boulders below to take any scenic path along the upper rim. After all, I grew up in the dead-center of the wooded lot surrounded by trees and boulders. Once that spark is reignited, I'm not so sure a tame trail without challenge will provide the same thrill.
