LocationsMassachusetts
Gloucester, Massachusetts
Ravenswood Park
Six hundred acres of quiet woods with ten miles of old carriage paths through them, enormous boulders furred over with ferns, and an overlook down to Gloucester Harbour.
Researched from this park's own sources. Nobody's walked it yet.
Read this bit out
A man called Samuel Sawyer spent years quietly buying up bits of land near his house — a woodlot here, an old pasture there, a piece of swamp nobody wanted. More than twenty-six separate pieces. He was not building anything. When he died he left the whole lot to be turned into a park, and that is what you are walking around: somebody's life-long habit of buying land and not using it, so that everybody could.
One of your three free places, or the Explorer Pass. What that costs
Before you go
- Time there
- Plan on about 2 hours at the park.
- Parking
- Free to everyone. Parking at 481 Western Avenue, which is Route 127.
- Underfoot
- Ten miles of old carriage paths and trails. The two-mile Ledge Hill Trail is the child-friendly one and runs among fern-covered boulders; another route climbs to an overlook above Gloucester Harbour.
- Stroller
- A stroller works on some of it.
22 challenges written for this place
A game deals seven to fifteen of them, so no two visits are alike.
Every game includes this one
The Fern-Covered Boulders
Find the enormous boulders with ferns growing all over them.
A few of the others
The Harbour Overlook
Walk up to the overlook and find Gloucester Harbour below you.
Beside The Boulder
One photo of everybody next to the biggest boulder you can find.
Down The Carriage Path
One photo looking straight down one of the old carriage paths.
Their Turn
Hand the phone to the youngest. They take one picture of whatever they want.
Twenty-Six Pieces Of Land
The man who made this park bought more than twenty-six separate bits of land and never built on any of them. Work out why somebody would do that.
Built For Horses
These wide paths were made for horses and carriages, not cars. Find something about them that shows it.
The rest are a surprise — that's the whole point.
Play this at Ravenswood Park
Free. Works with no signal once you're there.