I've had a hike set on my radar for a while now, to try to get to a spot between the Delaware and Susquehanna River watersheds in Delaware State Forest. I hiked for a long time, not seeing any rock piles at all. Probably my own fault for deciding to hike a lovely plateau instead of bushwhacking along the creek bed and up to the summit. At any rate, this is what I found:
I questioned whether the rocks in front were there only from falling off the outcrop above. This photo shows what looks to me like some deliberate stacking at the drip edge:
And that is as close as I wanted to get to that nice little rock shelter. It looked like the only party visitor there was either a black bear, coyote, or porcupine, so I didn't stick around to investigate!
A rock wall under the dripline of a rockshelter is not that unusual. One, about 4700 years old was found for the Flagg Swamp Rockshelter in Westborough, MA, but that was unfortunately destroyed to make way for an interstate offramp. C.C. Coffin listed about nine shelters in Connecticut with walls under the dripline.
ReplyDeleteCool. Looks man made to me.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty great! We have quite a few rock shelters along the Wissahickon. There is at least one that has been established as a bona fide shelter, smoke hole and even a small "bench" hacked out of the gutrock. I'll try and get some pics up...good thing about the Philadelphia environs: no bears to worry about.
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