Boulders and a Swamp

by theseventhgeneration
I visited a swamp today that is near a large cairn site in Delaware State Forest, NY. This part of the swamp is on the northeast side of an abandoned road, while the large cairns are on the southwest side of the road. There is a creek that runs under the abandoned road, and the swamp then continues near the large cairns. The majority of the swamp is on the northeast side of the road, where I explored today. This is a high elevation, 2015 feet, and the water here runs down into the Delaware River watershed.

At the back of the swamp, on the north side, I found a nice boulder that appears to have spring water coming out from underneath.



The snow is still a few inches deep, so any stones that are on the ground aren't obvious. But, as I looked around behind the boulder, there was evidence of stones near the boulder.

This view overlooks the spring boulder and down into the beginning of the swamp:



Looking around a bit more, I found more evidence of stonework, including 3 rocks or piles that seemed to be evenly spaced around the edge of the swamp. The spring boulder is barely visible to the right in this photo. The three rocks extend out, to the back, in the center of the photo:



And then this rock on rock, or rock on boulder...



...a close up of the rock on the boulder:



Then, this rock, I almost didn't explore because, from a distance, it looked like another uprooted tree. Boy, was I wrong. It reminds me of a manitou stone, but the shape is different, I think, from anything I've seen. It almost has an arrowhead look to it, like it's pointing down into the swamp:



This view looks over the top of the stone, down into the swamp:



There is more that I found today, including odd stone walls and some natural cliffs that are enigmatic. I'll follow up with another post on those during the week.