Welcome to the final chapter of our journey through Dante’s Divine Comedy on our Purgatory Creek Trail system. Having journeyed through Hell the last two weeks, we find ourselves on the brink of heaven standing at the intersection of the Paraiso trails.
Up until this year, the Paraiso Trail consisted of a single track moving West from the apex of the Styx Trail, but thanks to the hard work of the SMGA, a new onemile stretch branches to the North before rejoining the Dante Trail just before the Upper Purgatory parking lot. We’ll take the established western route past the Minotaur Canyon Look Out (the Minotaur being the half-man, half-bull creature of Cretan fame who guards the violent ring of hell) before descending back down into Purgatory Creek.
The Paraiso Trail doesn’t live up to its name in terms of terrain, as it consists mostly of jagged limestone reaching up for our feet with every step. Yet it does embody paradise according to Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist who said, “Hell is other people.” The Paraiso Trail makes for miserable mountain biking and tricky hiking, so it is the least populated trail in the park. Given its meandering through remoter sections, it’s also one of the quietest, so if we’re looking for some solitude, Paraiso is indeed a little slice of heaven. Coming down from this mountain- top experience, we once again connect with the Dante Trail, backtracking our way to the Beatrice intersection.
Beatrice is my favorite character and my favorite trail in Purgatory Creek, and not just because my favorite grandmother is named for her. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Beatrice serves as both Dante’s patron for the entire journey and his guide through Paradise. The trail in our park lives up to her adjective “beatific,” meaning blissfully happy. This is the only trail we can find shade year-round, making it a go-to summer hike. Beatrice also provides relief from the technical limestone as we all but glide down her smooth, rich dirt trails. For trail runners and mountain bikers alike, the Beatrice Trail offers that much-soughtafter flow we so often crave in a quality outing. Eventually, that river of dopamine dumps us out at the top of the dam, where we turn our faces back to the exit, over the Acheron and to our waiting vehicles.
The Ripheus Trail takes off from the top of the dam and goes down to the Acheron. Curiously enough, Ripheus, the Trojan warrior from the Aeneid, is found in the sixth circle of heaven personifying justice. Virgil writes of this hero, “Uniquely the most just of all the Trojans, the most faithful preserver of equity.” Given the Ripheus Trail runs along the landscape created as part of flood control for the city, I guess there is a sense of justice-for-all in his occupying this spot on our journey. We walk with Ripheus down from the heights of heaven to a low-water crossing and once again to the Acheron and Dante Trails, leading us to the parking lot and the end of our odyssey.
All said and done, we’ve covered 9.5 miles and 1,200 feet of elevation change, so this hike is not to be taken lightly as a single outing, and it is perhaps better suited to section hiking from the three major trailheads. However, if you’re feeling up to it, we might try a group hike on March 25, 2026, as it is Dante Day and the date on which the literature purports to have begun the Divine Comedy. On that day, Dante walks through gates emblazoned with the words, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” but given the divine joy that is our hiking trails, we might erect a gate that day declaring, “Discover hope all ye who enter here.”
Author’s note: For those of you detail lovers, you’ll notice I didn’t mention the Sinon, Minos or Nimrod trails, and that’s because they were just so far removed from their place in the literature that it was hard to connect them in any coherent fashion. That being said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t let you know that Sinon is also a Trojan soldier found in the eighth circle of hell, so his trail would have been more accurately sited near Malacoda and not Limbo. Similarly, Minos is the monstrous judge who assigns souls to their appropriate level of hell, so he would be right at home near the Limbo trail; however, he is out of place near the River Styx and Upper Purgatory. Finally, Nimrod, of Biblical infamy regarding the Tower of Babel, resides in Dante’s eighth circle of hell and so his trail’s location between Beatrice and Ripheus just doesn’t work. Trajan, the just Roman Emperor, and resident of the sixth heaven with Ripheus might be a good option if we were ever to rename the trails.
