I own BIG ROCK these days and have heard OLD RARIDAN!  In October a few years ago, I and a couple of friends were standing in front of the cave at the base of Big Rock. We heard what sounded like a howl come from inside the cave!  It happened a few more times as we stood there, and we soon realized that shouting into the cave would trigger the howl.  It was so erie sounding!  When I finally went into the cave to investigate, I fully expected to be mauled by a wolf. Upon entering the cave, I found it to be empty.  But, when I spoke, a howl seemed to emanate from the roof of the cave!  Now Big Rock has a crack that runs vertically up the face to the top.  We decided that the howling animal must actually be on top of the Rock and that the crack was channeling the sound to the cave.  We were getting ready to hike to the top to check it out when the howl changed to a more mechanical type of sound like a growl or a scraping.  It was then that we realized that the sound was actually the two massive halves of Big Rock moving and rubbing against each other.  This movement probably happens when the season changes.  It is surely this phenomenon that spawned the legend of Old Raridan!

Erin Hoskins

Proprietor