It’s one of Jamaica Plain’s most beautiful parks, yet the most rarely visited.  The bells are ringing as I walk down a small wooded path and up a stone staircase.  I reach the top. The bells stop.  It’s eerily silent.  You’d never guess it was on the outskirts of a major city.  I begin my search for a hidden landmark, it’s not on the park’s map for some reason, in fact, for such a landmark, there is little information mentioned anywhere of it’s whereabouts.  There are so many paths to choose from.  I turn to the right and begin walking along rows upon rows of gravestones.  This is Forest Hills Cemetery.

Today’s task is to find Reggie Lewis.  Why Reggie Lewis you ask?  I suppose I could have went in search of many of the historical figures buried here such as Francis Cabot Lowell, the Father of the American Industrial Revolution or Major General Joseph Warren, a leader of the American Revolution or many other notable figures of Boston’s past.  What intrigues me about Reggie Lewis, other than being a fellow Northeastern University Alumni, is that his grave site is not on the map.  It’s a challenge, and that makes it worth finding.

Besides, even if I don’t find it, exploring the many statues, intricate graves and pathways covered with red, yellow and orange leaves ought to make for a pleasant afternoon stroll.  It really is a nice place to visit, after all, people are just dying to get in.

It’s been over two hours of wandering around.  I’ve got some great pictures of various sculptures and statues.  There is only one problem.  Every path looks the same, all filled with slabs of carefully cut rock.  I’m disorientated.  I can’t remember which way I came from.  I am lost.

I’ve run through the cemetery in the past and forgot how big it really is.  With over 250 acres of grave stones, you can imagine how easy it is to lose your way.  Regardless, the only thing to do is keep plugging along, always continuing around the next bend until you recognize something.

There’s only one thing that creeps me out about cemeteries and it’s not the hundreds of dead people.  It’s cars.  Actually, to be more specific, it’s slow moving cars that give me the heebie jeebies.

I’ve been making my way around for almost three hours now when I hear the crackling of small twigs breaking behind me.  I turn.  It’s a car slowly moving up behind me, only several feet away.  I’m in the middle of hundreds of acres of parkland with no one else in sight.  It seems a bit ironic, being surrounded by the dead, yet the scariest thing around is the living.

Of course, within seconds I realize there is nothing to worry about, it’s just a little old couple driving around, probably looking for a loved one, or perhaps checking out the real estate.

It’s almost dinner time.  I finally make it back to the main entrance.  No luck in finding Reggie Lewis.  I check the map at the main office to see if he is there but to no avail.  I begin wondering if my original information was correct, maybe he isn’t even in this cemetery.

My stomach is growling. It’s time to pack it up.  It seems I need to do more research before closing out this particular expedition.

We’re standing in a large clearing along the Dublin Ridge.  We are two and a quarter miles from either end of the trail.  One end being the summit, the other being the starting point next to Dublin Lake.  It’s the longest of the five main trails on Mount Monadnock at 4.5 miles in length or 9 miles round trip.  This is the Pumpelly Trail.

Mount Monadnock has an interesting history, well, interesting as far as mountains go.  Both geologically and socially, Monadnock is a unique magical place for many New Englanders.  From the likes of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ulysses S. Grant and thousands of visitors every year, Mt. Monadnock has been known as the most hiked, most written about, most painted and most loved mountain in America.

Among many interesting historical facts about the mountain, some of the more interesting things are what is kept secret.  There are many hidden places on the mountain which are not publicized by the State Park and for good reason.  Unfortunately, these secret places are subject to vandalism if left to the devices of the general public.  On the other hand, it makes it all the more difficult for us curious adventurers to find.  Though I suppose it wouldn’t be much of an adventure if it was easy…

One such hidden location is Pumpelly Cave.  Though it’s common name is named after the trail which it is located near, the official name given by it’s builders is Megalithia.  Built by the sons of famed geologist/explorer Raphael Pumpelly and renowned naturalist painter Abbott Thayer, the cave was constructed as early as 1902 and remained a secret for many decades.  To this day only a select few know of it’s location on the mountain.

We’re hunched over a book, trying to keep the wind from wildly flipping the pages, examining an old photograph of Pumpelly Cave from the 1950s.  I had bought the book, Monadnock: More than a Mountain by Craig Brandon, a week earlier in the hopes that it would either give the location or at least hint at the location of the cave.  Aside from pictures of the cave and the story of it’s history there was little information to help find it’s whereabouts.

Fortunately, my brother Donald had the great idea to match the background of the picture with a location on the trail.  You see, the background image of the picture shows a certain angle of the second crag along the Dublin Ridge before reaching the summit of Mount Monadnock. This particular view, from what we could tell, could only match the current view along certain parts of the Pumpelly trail.

In addition to the background image of the old picture, we estimated that the cave was located approximately 2 miles from the road.  After reading the story of the cave’s builders, Raphael Pumpelly II and Gerald Thayer, the book says that the two would haul their building supplies two miles up the mountain from the nearest road, putting in over a thousand hours of work on their own secret hideaway.

We are walking around the large clearing where we think the cave is located.  We notice that on one side there are many large rock cliffs, a perfect spot for building a hidden shelter.  We veer off the trail into the woods, walking around large cliff faces and closely examining the surrounding terrain.  Of course the task is quite challenging, especially since the shelter was designed to blend into the natural landscape.  It’s for this reason that most people call it a cave when in reality it’s a man made shelter.

After walking along the side of the ridge for a quarter mile through dense pine forest and scrambling over large boulders we finally give up and head back to the main trail.  The sun is getting lower in the sky and the reality of finding Pumpelly Cave is not in our cards.  This particular part of Monadnock lore will remain a secret… for now.