see Part One and Part Two
After leaving the pond, I figured I had seen all there was to see. Boy, was I ever wrong! Eventually, a trail brought me to a pleasant little clearing:
I had a look around the clearing and came to an area along the edge where there was a very impressive and long heap of stones at the top of the steep drop-off:
The most curious aspect of this long pile was that it was so organized -- very few of the stones trailed off down the drop-off. Here's another view:
I left the clearing and continued on the trail back into the woods where I came to an area that was directly behind a neighborhood of modern houses. To my surprise, I came to yet another large heap of stones:
And if that wasn't enough, I came to another heap:
And then another still:
As daylight began to dwindle, I had to cut my exploration short. There was much more of this property that I never saw -- but what I did see was extremely impressive. Thanks to Peter Waksman for directing me there!In the end, I left this site very confused. These heaps are like nothing I had ever seen before. They were striking in their size and frequency. It seemed to me to be a place of contradictions -- small ground piles and boulder cairns, huge heaps of an incredible magnitude, an obvious earthen dam with more modern stone use, a long pile at the edge of a field -- even more than two months later I'm still processing everything that I saw at Whipple Hill.
Jim:
ReplyDeleteYou found many large piles that I don't know of. Can you send me a map? Or better yet would you consider publishing one on the blog? I think those large piles are pretty safe from vandalism and the site is in plain site as is.
Pretty interesting account. You found a lot more than anyone else did.
ReplyDeleteOne aspect of this site is worth mentioning. It is the easternmost of a string of sites that are aligned with the winter solstice sunrise and the summer solstice sunset. Whether this is a deliberate placing or not is open to debate. However I have found ceremonial sites at just about every place on the line to which I had access all the way to the NH border. From the top of Whipple Hill one can see the sun set over Mt Monadnock on the summer solstice. Monadnock has the reputation of being visited by Indians for ceremonial purposes but I have only found two examples of such structures there. It is difficult to sort out such things because of the tremendous amount of natural rock piles.
ReplyDeleteLast summer solstice I watched the sunset from the top to check my calculations. There was also a woman up there doing ceremonies with a rattle and a shaman's drum. She said she had studied with several meducine men including Slow Turtle who had given her the rattle.
There was also a lot of purple candle wax which I took to be left from some wiccan type ceremonies.
Tim Fohl
I have a Whipple Hill Blog. There is a link on it for a downloadable .pdf version of the Conservation Area and its trails. This might be helpful for people trying to locate the rock piles.
ReplyDeleteI also have a version with a UTM83 grid projected on it which could be used to place the locations with a GPS receiver. Let me know if you're interested in that version.
Don