I first discovered the Purgatory Creek Trail system in 2015, a few years removed from seminary, where I had a healthy church-nerd crush on Dante Alighieri. I stood in utter shock and delight that warm July morning as I gazed at the trail names pulled from Dante’s classic, the Divine Comedy, which recounts his journey through the depths of the Inferno, up the mountain of Purgatory, before finally bathing in the Beatific light of Paradiso. Ever since that glorious day in 2015, I have longed to hike this trail system, following in the footsteps of Dante.
That quest necessitated a grueling consultation session at Rough House Brewing with Daniel Strandlund, former vicar of St. Elizabeth in Buda, and current Dante Scholar at Oxford University, England. We pored over numerous libations and maps to find a route that matched the Italian literature with the Texas trails. Now, ten years later, I walk in the footsteps of that Florentine genius. So come along on a literary adventure, where we’ll journey the route from hell to heaven and back again…mostly.
The Divine Comedy opens with the words, “Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.” Our hike doesn’t begin with such melancholy confusion; simply park at the Lower Purgatory Trailhead at 2116 Hunter Road.
