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Quarry Hill
"What are you doing tomorrow?" It seemed I had asked this question
100 times already during the summer.
"Nothing, hey lets figure something out now, so we don't sit around
doing nothing tomorrow morning!" Was the reply I got from my friend Rudy.
My other friend, Tom, jumped up onto the hood of his 1979 Camero Z-28.
This was the unspoken signal that we would all stay under the stars and
contemplate for a while. I decided to take a seat on top of the back of my
mother's car. "Well, what are we going to do, guys?" Rudy must constantly
be thinking of new things because he didn't even appreciate the moment of
almost absolute silence. Tom gave a half laugh which said either "I've got
no ideas" or "Rudy is a funny guy".
"I don't know, what do you want to do?" I offered to both Tom and Rudy.
"I don't know, what can we do?" Asked a frustrated Rudy. I looked up
to the stars and tried to think. Finally an idea excited me enough to
actually say something.
"I know! Lets go to the Quarries in Uxbridge and go swimming! I've
never been and I hear it's a cool place!"
"Yeah!" It was clear to me that Rudy is a quick thinker -- I barely
finished my idea before he was in agreement. "Come on Tom, lets go to the
Quarries!" Rudy said to get a response out of him. Tom -- still in his
"quiet mode" -- looked Rudy right in the eye, blinked, gave a half laugh,
and smiled.
"Well, all right. It's 1:00am, I think I'm going to go to bed now."
I was getting bored with the silence, and Tom wasn't going to move into his
hilarious mood, so I figured that I'd get some rest for once. Tom and Rudy
got in their respective cars, said some final words to each other, and then
the silence was killed by the roar of the '79 Camero's big block 350 engine.
I casually walked into the house, shut and locked the door, turned off the
lights, and went to bed.
The next day I was awakened by the telephone. I rolled over, sat up,
and answered. "Hey, Tom and I are coming down now." It was Rudy, his
voice was lower than normal, so I could tell that he just woke up as well
most likely by Tom knocking on his door.
"Aight, I've just gotta take a shower, get dressed, then we can go."
"Aight, see yah in a bit."
"Later, man."
"Later!" I fell out of bed, took a quick shower and then got dressed.
As soon as I flipped on my hat, I went to the front door. I jumped down
the stairs and whipped the door open, only to see Tom and Rudy standing
there with a shocked look on their face. Tom pressed the doorbell, and
yelled "Hello?? Anybody home?!"
"Heh.. Wuzzup?" My timing couldn't have been more perfect. The guys
stepped back and allowed me to exit. I took one step outside before I
remembered. "Oh yeah, I forgot my bathing suit." I ran back up and
grabbed a towel and my bathing suit, then flew back outside.
"All right Matt, how do we get there?" asked Rudy.
"Just follow me to Quarry Hill, I know somebody who lives at the
bottom, we'll park there." Tom and Rudy hopped into Rudy's 1979 Pontiac
Grand Prix (It was Rudy's turn to drive), as I stepped into my mothers 1992
Buick LeSabre Custom. I started up the big boat of a car, turned on the
radio, and then we were on our way.
Quarry Hill is only about 10 minutes away from where I live, and
nothing happened that was out of the ordinary while driving to the next
town over, Uxbridge. We arrived at the top of the hill, drove down, and
parked on a little dirt road. I put the car in park, rolled up the windows,
got out, and locked the doors. I realized that I was carrying my bathing
suit and towel, and asked Rudy where his were.
"In my backpack, I've got enough room if you want to put yours in as
well."
"Yeah, that'd be cool, I don't want to carry it." Rudy opened his
green backpack and I stuffed my stuff into it.
"Hey, Tom, you're not gonna swim?" Tom shook his head and said "No."
I started to walk across the street. "Where yah goin?" Rudy asked.
"There's a path over here, that starts at this Christian place or
whatever. We just have to find it."
"And what if somebody comes by and says 'Hey you kids, what are you
doing?!?" Rudy asked. Tom laughed.
"Well, then we just say that we're checking out the Christian thingie
or something." It made perfect sense to me, and I guess Tom and Rudy found
that to be a reasonable excuse too. We walked down the driveway to the
Christian Playground -- Or whatever that place is, I'm still not quite sure
what -- and began looking for a path that lead up to the top of the hill.
"There's a path." I said.
"Naw, that one is too close to the main road, lets keep walking in a
bit." said Rudy, who didn't want to be seen by anyone. Rudy is an Eagle
Scout, so I trusted his "woodsmanship". We continued to walk down the
driveway, and another smaller path presented itself up the hill.
"How about that one, good enough for you?" I questioned.
"Yeah, lets try this one." Tom started to run up the path, throwing
small trees and branches out of his way. Rudy and I took off after him.
After jumping over one stone wall, the path came to a stop. Tom turned
around, looked at us and said "Now what?"
"Umn.. Keep going?" I replied. Tom turned back up the hill, growled
like a beast, and started to make a path of his own. Rudy and I followed,
semi-close as to not let the branches whip back and hit us. After
scrambling over several large boulders, we came to another path, much wider
than the first.
"Ah.. here we go, this is much better, we must be on the right path
now." I was glad to be on a more defined trial, it was a good sign that we
weren't blazing up too far away from our destination. We walked a few
steps, and another path connected to the one we were following. This new
path was wide enough for a car, and ran perpendicular to the one we were on.
The two paths hooked up and continued up the hill. We looked down the
perpendicular path only to see the main road running down the hill. "Well,
we're almost at the top, it's gotta be just a little further up." I said,
as I started to run up the wide path, trying not to be seen by cars driving
down the road. The next obstacle on the path was a 12 foot tall gate, that
had barbed wire at the top. From the distance we were, it was hard to tell
just how long this gate was, but it was obviously going to block any cars
driving up the path. We approached the gate, only to see that it was just
long enough to block the trail, but people had just walked around the gate.
"Why the heck would they make a gate that tall, then put barbed wire
on top of it, if it's not going to be very long?" Tom questioned, and then
laughed at the gate as he walked around it.
"Yeah, like somebody would walk up to the gate, and try to climb over
it." I laughed at the aspects of this barrier.
"Well, it keeps the cars from getting in, right?" Said Rudy, almost
sarcastically.
"Well, I guess... Hey.." I looked at over at Tom and Rudy as we walked,
only to see two big grins.
"Uh, I hope that's not all of it." Tom said, rather disappointed at
the view.
"Heh, there's gotta be more over to the left, it looks like a big
clearing." We had come to a small pool of water, that was surrounded by a
cliff about 3 feet high. Rudy began down a small trail to our left, Tom
followed, and I brought up the rear. I had not taken more than 10 steps
when I heard Rudy gasp and say "Ho-my-gosh." I crept further, next to
where Tom was standing, and peered out. Looking over this enormous cliff
made my legs feel weak, and I made my center of gravity very close to the
ground to feel stable. "Damn, that's high!" To me, the cliff seemed at
least 500 feet high at that point in time, in reality it was more on the
lines of 75-100 feet. The walls were sheer granite, covered with graffiti
"tags" that people had left. "Jim wuz here, '85" I read off one of the
many big boulders that were around the cliffs.
"Yeah man, people come here a lot." Rudy said.
"No kidding, yah think?" I retorted. Tom laughed. "Actually, I think
somebody has died here once every year on average."
"Well, lets just make sure it's not us today." Rudy replied. "Come
on, lets go over there." Rudy pointed to a large pile of boulders that was
on the other side of the black pool of water below us.
"How in heck are we going to get over there?!" I asked. It wasn't
the most brilliant question, I knew Tom and Rudy would find some way.
"Just walk along this path here." Rudy said as he made his way long
the cliff. We made our way down, onto a long, flat rock that ultimately
defined the bottom of the pool. The sky was a perfect blue, with the big
puffy cotton ball clouds. Tom, who was wearing all black wiped his brow
with his sleeve.
"Damn, it's hot."
"Yeah, It's wicked damn hot!" We were all sweating now, because we
had been climbing, and we were no longer covered by the shade of the trees.
"I'm going to the shade." Tom climbed over some more boulders and back
under the cover of some trees. There was another cliff leading upwards and
more to the right of our entrance point right near the tree upon which Tom
rested. I walked over next to Tom, and watched Rudy start to climb the new
cliff.
"Uh, that's the hard way man.. There are foot holds over here." I
started to climb up fast, trying to beat Rudy to the top, to prove that my
way was quicker. When I reached the top, I saw the most amazing view. It
made the whole day worth it. Even if we didn't end up swimming, or jumping
off the cliffs, the view from the new spot was spectacular. You could see
5 or 6 different pools of water, each had it's own color and cliffs to jump
from. There was a red pool of water, a green pool, a blue pool, a black
pool, and almost every mix of blue/green that one could imagine. Some of
the pools were merely surrounded with boulders and cliffs, others were held
by huge slabs of bowl shaped granite. Tom and Rudy joined me in looking
out on the Quarries. They both had a look of astonishment on their faces.
"Woah, this place is cool. We've gotta come back sometime." Rudy
stated. Tom nodded his head in agreement.
"It seems like we are in one of those adventure movies." Tom added.
"Hmm..yeah, like Stand By Me or something." I was glad that my
suggestion to cure boredom had revealed such an astonishing place. An
experience that I was able to share with two good friends. I haven't
returned to the quarries yet, I still plan to however. Tom and Rudy have
to come with me, and we'll just have to bring more people to see the
awesome site that is hidden with in the woods of just another average
Massachusetts town.
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