Friday, November 28, 2014

Potanipo Hill - Brookline NH

(Although the weather precludes new exploring, I have a few sites left up my sleeve from last week.)
I had announced the intention to head north and explore Potanipo Hill and, accordingly, drove up there last weekend for a hike. Reading about the place before hand I learned it was the first ski area "Big Bear" and now is the Andres Art Institute. 

Heading up the hill after parking I was confronted with cutout figures of infantrymen, lurking like shadows over the road. I headed into the woods, soon enough, to the south. Faintest traces of stuff:
It was thick going through laurel and I broke free onto a smaller summit to the south.

This is a messy bit of wall in one place by itself. I do expect more "linear" type structures up here in the more northern areas. I describe this more as a data point than a site of interest, it is where the small blue dot is on the map. After this, I climbed back north and up to the sub-summits and ridges off the main hill. 

At first I was seeing bits of ceremonial structure at the highest points. But then these started to have more and more modern rocks added. As I got higher on the main hill, while passing monstrosities in machine carved stone, I came to one of those modern spirals of cobbles that you see in art magazines. The cobbles were well covered with lichen making me wonder if they had been borrowed from an earlier pile. The final outcrop on top of the hill was a donation pile used by everyone.
With the shock of seeing a 20 foot tall, fake Inukshuk marring a beautiful southern view, I gave myself over to the pleasure of being completely appalled at what occupies that hilltop today. I scurried back down the main access road and caught a final glimpse of the evil spirits that seem to be celebrating the takeover.
Earlier on the sub-summits:


Then we see a mix of old and new:
Then comes the full-on awful:

Ouch!
So I hasten off the hill. On the way down, here are evil spirits of the place:
Glad to be out of there!

4 comments :

Curt Hoffman said...

Peter -
Would you say that the only genuine structures on this hill were the stone row and the donation pile?

pwax said...

I think the messy bit of wall by itself is a feature. I think the things I showed on the "sub-summits" are real - especially the larger piles on one ridge top.
Then when we start seeing "mix of old and new" a close look shows a depression in the rock with some deliberate walling next to a pile that has become corrupted. I thought that started out real too. The rest, was modern.

The thing is, it is all so corrupted, why bother? I am hoping a close look at the next hill over - Russell Hill - will have similar material without the modern additions. If so, it will give a more faithful picture of that area.

Tim MacSweeney said...

Found a link, naming the vandals: http://andresinstitute.org/?page_id=1582

Tim MacSweeney said...

(It included this one:
http://andresinstitute.org/?attachment_id=84
#18 Heart of the Anasazi – Wilma Mariano-Shay (Dine’ Nation Navajo) New Mexico, USA)