Stonestrider

Seek and Find The Sacred


November 26, 2019

Pinecrest Lake

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Location: Stanislaus National Forest/California/USA 

Elevation: 5,500ft

Note:  The booming beauty of California is truly a thing all its own, as distinct as places like Ireland, Jamaica, or The Southern Alps of Italy, and France. The legendary Californian Valley can easily be seen from outside the atmosphere, perfectly ensconced, like an elongated womb, by the limitation of the Pacific Ocean to the West, and the Stanislaus National Forest rising into the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range to the East.  The vast variations in morphology, from the Sea-levels of San Francisco, to the Valley,  filled with golden hills and glades of Orange groves, rising to the rugged rocky pinnacle at Yosemite’s Half Dome some 5000 feet above, could make a heart glow through the eyes. Fixed like a Jurassic rain-drop, between the eyes of Stanislaus National Forest and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, is Pinecrest Lake; a deep sapphire jewel, against a golden and green-grey wilderness. 

If you are lucky enough to find Sonoma California (Image/Right)  you will have found the main mountain-port village, tucked quiantly into the gorgeous golden hills on the very edge of the overall wilderness of West Coast Forest and Mountains, for jumping off into Stanislaus National Forest. Sonoma is like a Seaport town would be, to the wide-open Ocean, except it is a landward port.  Highway 108 shoots-out like a lightning bolt from Sonoma, north-east, into an ocean of rising Pine and Sequoia trees. Just an hour driving along Highway 108 and you will arrive at the mountain-town of Strawberry, California, and Pinecrest Lake (which is a slight right turn-off from 108.) Pincrest is a small resort with the option of swimming, hiking, and just sitting on the mountain-view beach. It’s spectacular, with a view of the first ridges of the Sierras. 

 Hiking any lake is a lesson in circumambulance, the eternal cycle of starting where you finish, and finishing where you start. Renown German psychologist and dream specialist Carl Yung considered the discovery of The Self to be a process of circumambulation, rather than any basic linear process. The experiential side of hiking can often times leave you feeling a little different by the end of an excursion, as opposed to when you started; and yet you are the same person. The larger the challenge, the more likely the hike will bring an interaction, or feeling,  that is new to you. Appreciation, confidence, tranquility, perseverance, less inhibited feelings, all result from hiking circular routes. And a circular route with a view like this, with the option to swim, or just sit in the Sun, can inevitably combine all of those feelings into a humble, but supreme joy. Even a few short moments of this rare feeling is enough to sustain you for the year to come. Off you go.

The trail at Pinecrest begins at a playful beach where families are enjoying the scene. One of the comforting aspect of lake trails is that you can’t get lost, so you can step boldly. If you begin to the right side of the beach, you will see a fairly impressive  megalith set on the shallow water. The boulder appears to model the arch of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in this incredible background, with 3 distinct indents near its core. It is aligned parallel to the scene of the mountains behind, which may be an indicator that this place might have megalithic secrets to share. In sacred sites in Ireland, Scotland, Arizona, and New England, Stonestrider.com has documented hundreds of locations where fixed boulders model the landscape. In these zones, free standing boulders sit at the top of rocky pinnacles, or imitate the arch of the valley below. Below is a megalith that was carved to fit the exact curvature of the lower Valley at Mount Bearnagh, Ireland (Image/Below/Left), and a marker-stone high on Mount Katahdin, in Maine USA, pointing directly at the peak in the distance.(Below/Right) 

 

 

 

 

Another example of a fixed boulder is this stone (Image/Left), set among incredible foliage in the heights above the Blackstone Valley in Upton Massachusetts. The stone is pointing directly at the apex of the small mountain beyond. This stone, interestingly enough, also has three distinctly indented slashed gashes, just like the megalith at Pinecrest.

 The trail at Pinecrest dallies through small rock gardens, contrasted by tall stones and gnarly Oaks and Pines. The right-side path of the lake, running counter-clockwise through these rocks and brambles, includes the option to swim at any given moment. This a joyful retreat for families, not the typical reclusive cultural jag of many stonestrider.com sites. Elder folks, children, extended families, and couples, are cruising through, conversing on every type of topic, while attempting the entirety of the trail. At the 2.5 mile mark, hikers will come to the opposite side of the beachhead starting point. There are a set of miniature cliffs reaching right up to the lake; elevated ridges and points of vantage over the entire scene. Interestingly, at the center of gravity of one of these high-points, is a perfectly placed, free-standing boulder. (Image/Below) There hundreds of thousands of these gravitational-fixed, strategically placed, boulders in the high points of many such beautific scenes across the Continent, and Western Europe. I need to address this glacial argument for a moment. Please consider the rediculous logic post-modern scientists are force-feeding us: Take a look at some other free-standing boulders in different places beautiful locations in New England, Arizona, Colorado. Ireland. Are scientists saying that the same glacial-sheet, from Ireland to Arizona, placed these boulders in gravitational perfection? Really? I have to struggle just to make this theory make sense. 

 

 

 

 

 

Does anyone ever raise the point of fact that these boulders are placed at the precise center of gravity for balancing, all at grand scenic points across America, and Western Europe?

What shafts of ‘glacial-ice’ could lay these boulders in the perfect gravitational center, literally hundreds of thousands of times? This boulder in Red Rocks National Park in Arizona (Orange/Below) is literally lock-fitted, and tilted towards the course of the Sun. This is scientifically significant points of observation totally dismissed by the ‘scientific community’. The Neolithic zones around these boulders are also amazing. It so obvious that these boulders are skillful markers of once-occupied sociological spaces. Scientists are incredibly pompous to 
ignore the gravitational aspect of these sociological statements. What irks me most is that these control-freaks honestly think you are dumb enough to believe that glacial-ice is responsible for these gravitationally-perfect, lock-fit, solar oriented Neoliths, always found in zones filled with incredible statements?  I’m so completely exhausted from presenting the evidence, scientifically,  only to listen to stuffy, passe, agenda-freak-concerned ‘scientists’  that give me their robotic, totally inconsiderate of the mathematical physics, response to the mounting evidence. I’m sorry to burst everyones bubble, but History is not what you were told in High School or Undergraduate. It is far deeper, and even mystical in nature, with miraculous evidence to challenge our very cognitive abilities.  I used to believe what other people believed, but you have to acknowledge the evidence, or consider yourself voluntarily blind. Just take a look at the digital cut of this boulder along the Pinecrest lake side, not far from the free-standing boulder. It looks like a wood  piece, cut from a carpenters table. It reminded me of a cut stone I found a few seasons prior to this, that was almost identical, in the forests of western Massachusetts. (Image/Below). 

Scientists say that this phenomenon is natural? If this happened naturally, a split from an earthquake or something, how does that explain the perfection of the cut? New England does not experience Earth quakes.  Where is the other half of the stone, if it simply, split? How does a boulder just split, perfectly? These don’t exactly move, EVER. to go one step further, consider an example of a cut-boulder that does have an adjacent face, at Mount Watatic in Massachusetts. It literally looks as if someone intentionally sliced this boulder, like a hot knife through butter, and then sanded a perfectly level and centered stone, directly between them. Look at the flatness and levelness of that middle stone. The centricity alone sets off all sorts mathematical principles, and design.  As you can see, the rocky pathway behind, goes up the mountain, and stems directly through this cut ‘gateway’. How can scientists claim this is random? It is absurd to me that they claim this is mere chance. Totally absurd.   And just as the trails wind through amazing works of Neolithic Stone at Watatic Mountain in New England, the trail here at Pinecrest seem to portray the exact same portfolio. These are ‘worked’ areas. Who did it, and how, is something people are allowed to consider without the bizarre ‘science-ing’ that ruins the entire process of thought for which these works are meant to inspire. Why can’t we understand that if they are ‘worked’ cultural statements, then they were left behind intentionally, for the very purpose of consideration. “Scientific” theories are pushing the ridiculous idea of ice-sheets placing boulders in perfectly fit gravitational porches…. in Arizona? And that same force did the same thing in Massachusetts? It’s ridiculous. There are so many geographic and physical absurdities to the glacial-ice displacement theory, that it is hard for me to believe that people actually sit through classes at Universities, listening to it.
The scenic hike at Pinecrest continues to a rocky, river-cut, plateau, overlooking the lake.  Here, there is a flow to the hike, a trust in the ruts, roots, and rocks, as you make your way. It is such an encapsulated beauty, the feeling of hiking along a practically hidden lake, at a high elevation. This whole area is surrounded by Stanislaus National Forest. This is the sister Lake of ‘Lake Tahoe’, which is just to the north of here. Pinecrest is one of the most majestic mountain/lake scenes in the world.  It has that far-away feeling, that deep distance from all things ‘controlling’, safely away from the grind of every day life, and observational angst and overload.

 

As you continue passed this halfway point of the rocky porch, you can stop and swim, enjoy the Sunny scene. The rocky ridges mingle with the trail, in a nearly perfect  picturesque way.

 

 

 

 

 

The milkiness of these hedges hugging-into the rocky ridges, is endearing. Nature is constantly embracing itself, exfoliating and observing at the same time. It really is something to think about, that absorption and exertion in one; The relief of the blue softness of water, against eternally sun-kissed stone. Stanislaus National Forest is a treasure, in scale, and vibrance; A massive force, pushing us to the edges of our understanding. 

The trail bends as the Sun ambulates above. There are small Redwood groves mingled with Ponderosa, Oak, and Birch, arching over the water. The trees have a luminosity hard to describe. The refractory light of this particularly clear and mineralized water,  reflects upwardly along the bark, making it seem like the trees are reflecting inner light from below, while receiving the Sun above. It all glows.This water is a priceless commodity in the density of the Forest. In indigenous times, before modernization, when this vast wilderness was uninterrupted, this place would have been a briliant magnet for every form of life, for as long as the lake has existed. There are booming crevices with stacking boulders so large that fallen trees look like broken branches in their embrace. There is a grandeur here.You will cross a small water-bound bridge towards the last stretch of pathway and have a look back at the edge of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in the distance. Beyond the Sierra Mountains is an intimidating and elevated wilderness that stretches East into deserts, then more massive mountains, then the Great Plains. This is a fine place to be, compared to all that vastness to the East. The last portion of the trail winds back into the Forest, and then to the beach where you began. It is truly endearing to consider the delicateness of the flowers that flourish here, at the final portion of this 7 mile circular jaunt, against the backdrop of the absolute severity beyond. (Image/Below/Left) It reminded me of a trail of lavender foxgloves I once wandered into in the ancient heights of Wales, north of Mount Snowdon. (Image/Below/Right).

It is this type of ‘connectivity-of-thought’ that is the real marrow of mountaineering; when you have visions of another similar location, while passing through a real-time moment. You are literally alive in your past, present, and future, when this happens. It is so hard to produce this spiritual transcendence in the clamor of modern “interactions”, if you can call them that, these days; With texting and emailing, and constant bullshitting to no end, it is hard to find this frame. The realness and  delicateness of these flowers struck me, after all that craggy rock on trail. It was humbling to see. I will quote the illustrious Dr. Seuss, while mentioning these flowers, flourishing in a stadium of extremity; That after all that effort, of working through the large-scale challenges of this rugged place, these flowers should remind us, finally and after all, that “A person is a person, no matter how small.”  Thanks for reading. And for God’s sake, go for it. 

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