Wierd Rock Formations In The Woods! Explination?

[+AJ of Dunbar]

Hey around here in the charleston area of WV in the woods at kanawha state forst (at around some local fishing lakes i walk through) there are wierd rock formations in places. Like rocks pilled ontop of one another for no reason. Very Blair witch like. These arent isolated rock piles they can be all over the place in certain areas. They dont look recent, infact on some trees, mosses, and other LARGE plants are growing on them cause they have been there so long. Any one got info on this? maybe indians did it a long time ago for some reason?

 

Some piles are just on the ground but the some are ontop of boulders proving some one put them there. heres some pictures:

 

 

 

The second picture could be from when they made the trail,. but why move the rocks like that? Those were taken in a state forst. I have seen these same formations just out in the woods where no trails are around, except atv trails, they seem very weird. After seeing blair witch, even though its fake it just gives you (me and my buddy) an uneasy feeling.

 

ideas?

 

aj

[+Mopar]

They are called cairns.

Modern ones are often built by hikers to mark a trail. I older times the could have been used as boundary markers. Even more ancient ones may have some sort of religious or celestial purpose.

 

Here's one of many I've found:

 

Now, if you want "Blair Witch" freaky, how would you like to find THIS in the middle of the woods?

Edited May 24, 2004 by Mopar

[+pnew]

what Mopar said or they could be the remnants of important CCC work from Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal Plan days... moving piles of rocks from point A to point B.

 

And if its not any of those things its Gnomes. I hear they run rampent in that area of the US

[+Kitch]

Just think about the people that will try to figure out what an ammo can in the woods is with little toys inside of it...150 yrs. from now after geocaching.com is long gone!!

[+Criminal]

Did you get permission to take pictures in a state park?

 

 

 

 

[+Mopar]

 

And if its not any of those things its Gnomes.  I hear they run rampent in that area of the US

Hope it's not these guys!

 

 

listen!

Edited May 24, 2004 by Mopar

[+briansnat]

Not sure what the first photo could be. Sometimes rock piles were used to mark property boundries. That's a possiblity with that one.

 

The second (bottom) photo looks like they could be tailings from a mining operation. Any holes, depressions or pits nearby?

Edited May 24, 2004 by briansnat

[GrandpaCannon]

Did you get permission to take pictures in a state park?

 

 

 

 

Sorry to be dense. My excuse is that I am halfway through a shift that started at 6:00 a.m. Is this a joke or is this really something you have to have permission for?

[+SnowLeopard]

It could be rocks moved from a farmer's field...

[+Eric K]

If I saw the one that Mopar posted I'd think I'd be high tailing it out of the woods before someone starts sacrificing a goat!

[+carleenp]

I have been known to pile up rocks for no real reason other than to make people wonder why there is an artificial pile of rocks there.

Edited May 24, 2004 by carleenp

[+briansnat]

I have been known to pile up rocks for no real reason other than to make people wonder why there is an artificial pile of rocks there

 

You're sick! I've been known to do the same thing .

[+Nazgul]

I was out caching in a popular local park on Friday and on the hike back to the parking lot I glanced through the trees to my left and saw something unusual. *blink* *blink* No, it really was there, a blue and white asian-style porcelain vase sitting behind a tree. I thought, well, ah... let's say I thought "WTF?" Was I in some kind of Chinese ghost story? Was I about to be harassed by vampires that were good at kung fu?

 

OK, dismissing that line of thought as having seen too many cheesy kung fu movies, we moved in to check it out, and there's a big collection of other oddball stuff lying around, like a treasure trove of trade items. It was a Santeria shrine. Voodoo!

 

I admit that the thought of tossing a logbook into the vase and submitting it as a cache briefly crossed my mind, but that was quickly ruled out as disrespectful and perhaps bad juju.

[+Divine]

This is pretty cool rock formation:

 

[+LETaylor]

Yes, I wrestled it to the ground and dispatched it with my bare hands.

[+briansnat]

Probably the last boulder's cousin:

 

[+LETaylor]

Now that's interesting. They look like twins!

[+AJ of Dunbar]

Here's one of many I've found:

 

Now, if you want "Blair Witch" freaky, how would you like to find THIS in the middle of the woods?

I htink i would have got out of there after that! I did not notice any large holes from mining, there are service road but they dont go past that side of the hill. I figure it was man made for some reason or another, but the ones at the other location are close to the remnants of a house a qucker use to live in all alone (or so im told). So that out there is a little odd.

 

aj

[+PandyBat]

Oh man! I would be freaking out to come across the scene in Mopars second picture in the woods. There's a guy that lives not too far from me that does this kind of stuff in his front yard. Weird stuff made of rocks and sticks all over the place, hanging in trees, etc.

 

I like Carleens idea about starting my own rock cairn somewhere to make people wonder what the heck was going on in that spot...lol

[+Renegade Knight]

I have been known to pile up rocks for no real reason other than to make people wonder why there is an artificial pile of rocks there.

So that's where you hide your caches...

 

I've heard rumors that in southern Idaho you can stand at one cairn and in the distance seen another one. They mark where water used to be for travelers acros the desert. This is a rumor that I haven't checked out.

[+Team Mach]

There was a guy out of BC that used to balance rocks like this. Occasionally you'd see them around Calgary along the Bow river while hiking. Definitely freaky.

 

http://rock-on-rock-on.com/gallery.html

 

[+TotemLake]

Did you get permission to take pictures in a state park?

 

 

 

 

Sorry to be dense. My excuse is that I am halfway through a shift that started at 6:00 a.m. Is this a joke or is this really something you have to have permission for?

I'm not laughing at you I'm laughing with you.

[+Divine]

There was a guy out of BC that used to balance rocks like this. Occasionally you'd see them around Calgary along the Bow river while hiking. Definitely freaky.

 

http://rock-on-rock-on.com/gallery.html

Wow! Thanks for the link, definitely worth checking. The stuff looks almost fake, but I have to go to the beach and give it a try some day!

[GrandpaCannon]

But Wait...I'm not sure I'm laughing yet.

[+PandyBat]

There was a guy out of BC that used to balance rocks like this.  Occasionally you'd see them around Calgary along the Bow river while hiking.  Definitely freaky.

 

http://rock-on-rock-on.com/gallery.html

Wow! Thanks for the link, definitely worth checking. The stuff looks almost fake, but I have to go to the beach and give it a try some day!

How cool is that!? I'm going to try this in a spot in my yard. Very cool, very beautiful and very amazing! Thanks for posting that link, Team Mach!

[+elpese]

While backpacking out in the waaay back country these "carins" or "ducks," as they're also known practically saved our lives...or at least saved us a huge headache of getting lost and needing to do a lot of bushwacking The trail had been long washed out and was no longer where our topo said it was. Some kind soul had forged a new "trail" and set up these rocks to help guide the way. There is some debate among pure outdoorists about whether or not these should be set up at all (interfering with the landscape), but I love them. Now setting them up just to make one wonder...well I don't know about that, just as long as you aren't trying to intentionally make people lost (but hikers shouldn't depend on them anyway). I know that Native Americans used to set up markers like this to help guide them through the woods. Happy hiking!

[+Seamus]

Along the side of the trail to my first cache hide, There are a number of rock stacks similar to the smaller ones pictured here. They were there long before I got there, and over time, they've been changed, moved, and replaced as people have added to them and knocked them over. They're generally right along the side of the trail, and appear to be little more than the work of hikers who, seeing a stack of rocks, added one or two of their own.

 

A while back, I remember seeing a sign for "balanced rock trail", which had several dozen stones piled on top of it. A similar "group project" to the random piles of stones along the trailside.

 

Probably nothing more significant than a bunch of hikers having a bit of fun...

[Jamethiel]

That first picture posted reminded me of some old "fortifications" I've seen in West Virginia and VA that were supposed to date from the Civil war or the revolutionary war or from some indian attacks. I never got a straight answer on exactly when they were supposed to have been created. But the rocks were pile similary (sp). Just something I thought of when I saw that pic.

There is a neat cache in Montana called the Basin Sculpture walk where part of the joy of the cache is creating your own rock art if you desire. On another side note, I found a ceramic statue in the woods once that was a marker for scattered cremains.

-Jennifer

[+LukeH]

I have found lots of mines in the woods. One of them is a large square hole cut into a rock hillside, and there are rocks of many sizes piled up outside it. The square hole is full of water. Pretty sure that is an old mine, but there aren't any tailings other than the piles of rocks.

 

Then there is a large hole in an earthy hillside which has been filled up and is now just a big depression. It's covered with old boards that were hastily placed on there and are beginning to rot through. That could have been an old prospect hole; not unlikely since I know there were at least 2 gold claims staked in an area just a few hundred yards northeast of where I sit now.

 

Finally there are the remains of what was definitely a mine. In fact I think I even saw the mine symbol on a map of the area once (not your regular USGS quads, but another topo map I have). It consists of several huge cuts into a hillside and there are tailings strewn all over the place.

 

I know of at least 1 other mine in the area that I haven't found yet. I like finding these things because it's a window into the past.

 

Hmm.... I wonder if there is still any gold left anywhere in the hills around here. That would be unbelievably cool to dig a hole and find some. Instant wealth!

[+rusty_tlc]

I have been known to pile up rocks for no real reason other than to make people wonder why there is an artificial pile of rocks there.   

So that's where you hide your caches...

 

I've heard rumors that in southern Idaho you can stand at one cairn and in the distance seen another one. They mark where water used to be for travelers acros the desert. This is a rumor that I haven't checked out.

Those were probably Basque Stone Boys.

[+IV_Warrior]

I have been known to pile up rocks for no real reason other than to make people wonder why there is an artificial pile of rocks there

 

You're sick! I've been known to do the same thing .

Well, I haven't done that before, but now that you've gone and mentioned it, I'll probably have to at some point in time..... :D

[+Two Geeks and a GPS]

 

What about this thing found near our cache in Michigan's Upper Peninsula?

[+AJ of Dunbar]

err that green 'doll' is freaky. he first thing that pops into my head when i see wierd stuff like that (not that i have seen somehting that iwerd) is wiccans! i dont know.... just does... wierd looking thing though.

 

aj

[+TotemLake]

But Wait...I'm not sure I'm laughing yet.

Then perhaps I am laughing at ya.

[+Nazgul]

What about this thing found near our cache in Michigan's Upper Peninsula?

It looks like Iron Maiden's "Eddy" character is going through a frat hazing!

[+Two Geeks and a GPS]

I have some Wiccan friends, and while they do some wierd things, no voodoo dolls, or stick/rock formations at random in the woods. But to stumble onto that stuff in the woods is very freaky. The doll in the tree was at our favorite camping spot. We camped there and nothing happened. We did kind of freak ourselves out by the campfire that night though!

[Team Itchymax]

we had a lot of random rock piles in the woods where I grew up...(George Washing National Forest)...many of the taller stacks are remnants of old cabin foundations or chimneys and the others were mostly the results of farmers clearing the rocky mountain side for fields. And then my dad makes little neat rock piles to mark his trails.

[dsandbro]

Best guess is old survey marker.

 

Old surveyors knew that tree blazes and wooden signs disappear, so they devised another way to permanently mark corners. Charcoal does not rot away like wood, so they would build fires on the corner and bury the charcoal just below the surface, then cover the spot with a pile of rocks. Sometimes use rocks only. Later, brass plates inscribed with the information was buried to. And now the brass plates are benchmarks permanently imbedded in concrete or glued into holes drilled into bedrock.

[+Planet]

I have a friend who's family owns a house on a river in VT. Years ago he started balancing rocks one atop the other along and in the river (like the ones in the pic above near the water). Other people came down the dirt road and started adding to it. Each year the ice out would knock down the ones closest to the water, but left higher ones standing. People would continue to come and pile them up again after the ice out. The paper did an article on it and called it Land of the Little People. It became kind of a tourist attraction. I built a few myself, trying to put them high so they'd stay. To this day it is still happening.

 

As for some of that wierd stuff, I just got done reading Midnight in the Garden of good and Evil. Perhaps there is some voodoo at work and the wiccans didn't do it?

 

BTW, I did the cache in the Bonaventure Cemetery too, very cool place!

[+Confucius' Cat]

 

I would love to know the origin of this one. It is apparently one of several VERY LARGE rocks in the tops of trees in the area. This one is about 30 feet up. Picture is mine and NOT photoshopped.

 

None of the usual speculation makes any sense. Trees do not grow up from the ground, they grow by sending up shoots, thus a fork at ground level will always be at ground level. The rock could not have grown up with the tree.

 

Could have been a "college prank" but if so, it was a LOT of work. Trails in are narrow and steep. No room for construction equipment. Would have been VERY difficult with block and tackle. Even carrying the stone in would have been (if you pardon the expression) "monumental".

 

There are no similar stones lying around.

 

I plan to study these rocks further this summer if I have the time.

 

(edit:) Cache is called "Indy Star Misdirection" by Indy Diver

Edited May 26, 2004 by ChurchCampDave

[+Seamus]

[ Image of big rock in a tree ]

I would love to know the origin of this one.  It is apparently one of several VERY LARGE rocks in the tops of trees in the area.  This one is about 30 feet up.  Picture is mine and NOT photoshopped.

 

None of the usual speculation makes any sense.  Trees do not grow up from the ground, they grow by sending up shoots, thus a fork at ground level will always be at ground level.  The rock could not have grown up with the tree.

 

Could have been a "college prank" but if so, it was a LOT of work.  Trails in are narrow and steep.  No room for construction equipment.  Would have been VERY difficult with block and tackle.  Even carrying the stone in would have been (if you pardon the expression) "monumental".

 

There are no similar stones lying around.

 

I plan to study these rocks further this summer if I have the time.

 

(edit:) Cache is called "Indy Star Misdirection" by Indy Diver

D.B. Cooper was really into rock collecting?

[+Stunod]

I would love to know the origin of this one. It is apparently one of several VERY LARGE rocks in the tops of trees in the area. This one is about 30 feet up. Picture is mine and NOT photoshopped.

 

None of the usual speculation makes any sense. Trees do not grow up from the ground, they grow by sending up shoots, thus a fork at ground level will always be at ground level. The rock could not have grown up with the tree.

 

Could have been a "college prank" but if so, it was a LOT of work. Trails in are narrow and steep. No room for construction equipment. Would have been VERY difficult with block and tackle. Even carrying the stone in would have been (if you pardon the expression) "monumental".

 

There are no similar stones lying around.

 

I plan to study these rocks further this summer if I have the time.

 

(edit:) Cache is called "Indy Star Misdirection" by Indy Diver

Gobbler’s Rock

[+JMBella]

There was a guy out of BC that used to balance rocks like this. Occasionally you'd see them around Calgary along the Bow river while hiking. Definitely freaky.

 

http://rock-on-rock-on.com/gallery.html

 

Gotta be pins in those rocks. I don't see how that's possible. I watched the video on the site and I didn't see one shot of him picking up a rock and balancing it. The video is edited. Watch when he picks up a rock, before he lets go it cuts to a closer shot. I'm just not buying it.

[+rusty_tlc]

I put a cache here hoping somebody would step up and tell me about this formation. As you can see it is in a fairly densley populated area. But I think it is a hard enough location that not many go there. The two routes to this spot are stright up a rock talus or across 1/2 mile of bowling ball sized rocks, very tough walking.

[+archaeor]

I got excited when I found these

 

 

Rick

[+TotemLake]

oO0(Hmmm did we just cross a line?)

[+archaeor]

[/*in my best Elmer Fudd voice*]

"Shhhhhhh . . . . we're waiting to see . . . . "

[/*Elmer Fudd voice/off*]

 

They are, after all, just pictures of Nature's creations . . .

 

(I'm doomed . . . )

 

Rick

[+bons]

I'm just not buying it.

http://contrapunctus.net/league/photo/pcd0423/011.php - The same guy doing his thing in San Fran.

http://www.elaccess.com/devotion/rocks/ - more rocks.

http://www.klatu.com/lix/rockatier/ - some other people doing the same thing.

 

It's a really cool skill. It's sad when someone learns how to do something magical and we decide to distrust them rather than enjoy it.

[+Two Geeks and a GPS]

That rock balancing thing is just like those trick billiards guys on ESPN. How can one balance to round cue balls on each other? I've seen it but don't believe it!

[jfreeman_bsj]

Hey around here in the charleston area of WV in the woods at kanawha state forst (at around some local fishing lakes i walk through) there are wierd rock formations in places. Like rocks pilled ontop of one another for no reason. Very Blair witch like. These arent isolated rock piles they can be all over the place in certain areas. They dont look recent, infact on some trees, mosses, and other LARGE plants are growing on them cause they have been there so long. Any one got info on this? maybe indians did it a long time ago for some reason?

 

Some piles are just on the ground but the some are ontop of boulders proving some one put them there. heres some pictures:

 

 

 

The second picture could be from when they made the trail,. but why move the rocks like that? Those were taken in a state forst. I have seen these same formations just out in the woods where no trails are around, except atv trails, they seem very weird. After seeing blair witch, even though its fake it just gives you (me and my buddy) an uneasy feeling.

 

ideas?

 

aj

Refering back to the original question.

There are woods there now, but there is a pretty good chance it wasn't always the case. In WV and here in southeastern Ohio it is likely that some farmer took those out of a field 140 years ago and the woods grew back up around the rock pile. People then would farm places they would never dream of farming now, I guess the old mule didn't mind working in places that tractors cannot go.