Out for a Spin

Just a beautiful weekend to take the Ruckus out for a spin...so I decided to visit one of my favorite haunts...

The first time I ever saw this wall - my eyes were drawn to the beauty of it by the reflection of the sun bouncing off the sandstone.

It starts off low - before rising in the center and ending back low again. Very Native American look - in the form of a rattlesnake effigy. Much like an similar example at Stonewall Jackson State Park  in West Virginia.

The total length of the wall is about 1/4 mile - pretty nice size.

 The structure as a whole - shows considerable age...

Showing the wall snaking it's way up the hill. As you can see - there is a lot weather related damage to the structure. I had intended to shoot the entire wall - but right about here - it sounded like a coyote den was very close by - you could hear the pups whimpering - so I turned around at this point - because I didn't want to piss the mother off...

So I dug up some old shots of the end section - where it begins to taper down...

To the end here - with the stones leaning against each other - much like the scales of a tail.

Right where the wall stops - is this nice size mounds that again - shows considerable age. There are also some other structures at this site that point to Native American - along with another wall of similar size and three other smaller walls.

Rock Shelter

 

With most of the snow finally gone - rockpile season has begun for me. This rock shelter is located on the hillside above Conemaugh Gap. The scale is hard to tell from this shot.

From this angle - you can get a better looks at the scale.

This shot is a bit on the bright side - April sun - plus old camera - which meant some of my shots didn't turn out.

View directly in front of the shelter. There are also a set of nice springs located in an area behind the shelter. No rockpiles in this area - that I have seen yet - but there looks to be some possible larger rock mounds a couple of hundred feet from here. But they still have snow on them.

Not much - but could be?

The weather has been great for searching - too bad I have not been finding much - except for this possible structure. I am standing along the ridge line of the Conemaugh Gap.

 Interesting though with the notch-like theme on the right hand side.

 The left-hand side continues the notch - with what looks like a possible Manitou. I will say that the possible structure points North and even if the area was clear cut - there would be no way for this to be used for either a sunrise or sunset points. But the moon or stars - that's another question. My E-Trek Garmin does not seem to want to connect to any satellites - so I can prove that point at this time.

I sort of guess as to the exact location via Google Maps - there are a few cairns scattered around the area - but they are so low to the ground - that there could be more for all I know.

 

Possible Rock Shelter

Just a beautiful day to be in the woods. RJ wanted to ride on the back of what I call bear rock - with cub rock on the lower right.

 -------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------

But enough about bear - here is what I am talking about. It's larger than it appears by this shot.

But before I show the front of this - RJ is heading up to a sort of tunnel or trench like structure.

This is actually smaller than it appears - room enough for one person at a time to go thru.

This also has parts that show some fire cracked rock damage. Though you can't tell from this picture - the whole things goes slighty up hill.

Looking back towards the way you go in.

Looking around at the top here - I think there could be a couple of possible rockpiles. But will clean some of this off another time to get  better understanding of what may be going on here.

Looking back towards the whole of the trench

This juts out more than it appears - I was running out of card space at this point. Besides this picture isn't the greatest - it was just a hard place to shoot.

RJ peeking around the other opening. I will be going back to take better pictures of this structure in the future.

 

 

Gettysburg Turtle

Took a weekend trip to Gettysburg and what do I see on Little Round Top - looks like a turtle to me. 

 

Another tree in a pile

Another of the rockpiles with a tree

Rockpile with tree

Since it's too hot and I don't go off trail in the summer. I was going thru some pictures from a couple of months ago. This is a nice size rockpile with an even larger set of trees growing out of the top.