Stone piles on Melondy Hill

I've been looking at cairns, stone piles, boulders and some stacked stone on boulders in Melondy Hill. They are on the east side of a hill, above a creek that runs into the Susquehanna River. On my first outing, I located 6 stone piles. I went out again to this site, just the other day, and found 3 more piles. Two of the cairns are about 13 feet in length, five and a half feet wide and four and a half feet tall at the highest point. There are at least two piles that appear to have a depression in the center. Another pile looks like a cairn with a 'snake like' effect to it, but it also seems to be collapsed on the south side.

This photo is of the large cairn, the farthest south of the group. It is also the most intact of the nine.

This is the same cairn, south face (looking north).

The third photo is of the 'snake like' cairn. The north end is still intact, but the south end appears to have collapsed. If you look carefully, you can see the first cairn in the background of this photo. I plan to get out here again when the leaves are off the trees to take some more pictures.

This is a picture of the 'snake like' cairn on the south side (looking north).

The cairn in this photo is very similar in dimension to the first cairn. It is very large, but appears to have collapsed some on the south (right) side. Ironically, the north side has the large tree on it. Some stones appeared to have been knocked off by the tree, but the cairn did not appear to have collapsed on this side, due to the tree falling on it.

This is the same cairn from the opposite side, to show how well the stones are still stacked beneath the tree. The tree that is on this cairn extends out so that the upper branches are on top of a round cairn next to this cairn:


This cairn has a very clear depression in the center, which is hard to see in photos because of the branches on it.


There was also another cairn or stone pile with a depression in the center, that was higher up the bank, to the west. Here is a picture of that one:



You can see to the very far rear/left of the above photo, a tree down along the horizon. That tree is down across one of the three cairns I missed on my first visit out to this site. Here is a closer picture of that cairn:




There was one large rock, or boulder, with stacked stone on it that was in this cairn field. It was closer to the road than the cairns, but it definitely caught my attention:




Lastly, there was a small boulder toward the north end of the cairn field that was most likely there by coincidence. I couldn't help but notice it, however, I think because of the color of the lichen on it. I often find myself taking pictures of some odd things when I'm out looking at stone piles. Maybe I'm hoping for a touch of serendipity!





I hope you enjoy the photos!!