Barrington's Forgotten Devil's Den Cave

Among the many Devil's Dens, the cave at Barrington is one of the most remarkable. It has, probably, the longest underground chamber in New Hampshire, not man-made.

- New England's Buried Treasure, 1946, Clay Perry

New Hampshire isn't exactly riddled with caves, but this was still a bold claim. The longest natural underground chamber in the state, and not hidden somewhere in the White Mountains but rather an anonymous 400 foot hill in the little town of Barrington? Finding this spot had been on my wish list for a while now, but until recently the only clue I had was that the cave was located about a mile northeast of a well known landmark in town. I didn't imagine this meant an exact mile or an exact northeast either, which made a pretty wide area of woods when I started scoping it out on Google Earth. I saw many afternoons of fruitlessly searching in my future.

That's when my fortune changed and through discussions with a fellow adventurer I was given specific coordinates to its entrance. In return I happily offered him the location of any place I knew of, and soon after made my first scouting mission to the area. I found a trail off Route 9 that led in the general direction of the cave, so my plan for that weekend was to ride my bike as far down the trail as it would take me, then bushwhack the rest of the way.

The first part of this adventure was not only easy, it was surprisingly interesting. The trail turned out to be an old dirt road that led past several interesting sights I'd like to learn more about, starting with these stairs that led to nowhere.

I eventually reached the end of both the trail and all signs of civilization, gave my GPS a stern warning to accurately record the location of the tree I was chaining my bike to, and there I began my bushwhack. As the crow flies the distance from my stashed bike to the cave's entrance and back was roughly a mile, but I don't have wings and the route I hiked took me 2.83 miles round-trip that afternoon, a good majority of it being not very pleasant. The nastiest part was crossing this marsh, and if you're from New Hampshire I don't need to tell you that swamp water in early May is something less than a warm bath. I came out of that thing with a worse case of trench foot than Gary Dodds, but on I pressed.

During most of my adventures there comes a time when doubt sets in as to whether I'll succeed, and today was no different. After reaching the spot my GPS insisted the cave was but not finding any big holes, I had my first wave of concern. Not panic though, I simply expanded my search to a wider circle and tried again, including scouring an area with several massive boulders that I thought had to be the spot. But I still found nothing, and that's when I did something that has since made me a firm believer in the term temporary insanity. I turned off my phone and my GPS, put my electronics in my pockets, then looked around and thought to myself; if I were a cave, where would I be? And I began to walk.

Twenty minutes later I stood alone in the wood, no idea where I was and feeling more than a bit foolish. I'd just tried to outsmart a satellite GPS using nothing but my sixth sense. But before I never speak of that craziness again, let me say that two good things came of it. One, my wanderings led me to this small cabin perched overlooking a lake, which reminded me of a scouting camp I'd explored the previous fall.

The second cool thing that came of it, depending on your view of this stuff, were these two jawbones I spotted while retracing my steps. I'm no zoologist, but by the size of these things I'm leaning toward them belonging to a moose. Or a bigfoot.

So I decided to give the coordinates another go and fired up my GPS again, and I don't know what was suddenly so different - maybe that I was coming at it from the opposite direction, or maybe my Garmin was jumping on the first try - but this time I hiked right up to the cave's entrance as if I'd been there a dozen times before.

Now came the next challenge, making sure nothing was waiting inside to make me its post-hibernation breakfast. I raised all sorts of hell at the entrance, including chucking several stick and rocks down into the darkness, then waited a good fifteen minutes without hearing any noises from within. Knowing there's no guarantees when it comes to stuff like this but hoping that anything inside was more scared of me than I was of it, I crawled in.

The first ten feet felt like I was shimmying down a kid's tube slide I was too big for, then the cave opened to a hallway maybe twenty feet in length and with a ledge running through the second half of it. It was as impressive in size as Clay Perry's 1946 book described it to be. After a moment of thanks that I'd worn old sneakers, I crossed a stretch of animal droppings deep and squishy enough to almost flat-tire my shoes, then I was able to climb onto the ledge and reach the end of the first chamber.

From here the hallway dropped through another chute, and although I'm confident I could have squeezed through and continued into a second more narrow chamber, this is where I stopped for the day.

As with prior explorations, if I'm not certain I can make it through safely I'll wait for a return trip with friends.

So I left one of the foreign coins I carry on a ledge at the end of the first chamber, then triumphantly made my way back out into sunlight. And for anyone who reads this story, if you somehow find yourself in that cave someday and are able to locate that coin, I really do hope I hear from you.

That would mean your adventure turned out to be just as successful as mine was.

Related Links:
Devil's Den - Pawtuckaway State Park
Devil's Den - New Durham