being the vortex is on private property, the owner saw fit to erect a tiny giftshop and fence it in, requiring a nominal free to help with his property taxes on so much acreage.

we get to camp for free though.

W00t! Free camping!

yeah, there's a lot of places around here that people can still camp on that's not forest service property and not pay to stay.

I wish there was a place like that around here. All we have is the Cherokee Indian Reservation...

What causes it? THIS causes it, THIS causes it, INFORMATION OVERLOAD!

*cough* Sorry, couldnt help myself.

I think its caused by people who want to believe in it, so they look for ways to justify that belief.

so people are making up and imagining the oddities that happen in and around this location?

believe in it or not...there is definitly some sort of strong magnetic pull in this area, there's no way anyone can bend the trees in a forest on that level hundreds of years ago before whiteman was even in this valley, how does a marble roll up, how can you lean forward and not fall, how can a heavy chain that should be hanging, actually stays raised up at an angle?

i'm not claiming anything supernatural about it, i've heard no spouting about it's healing ability, it's only open seasonal and you rarely see any new age hippies sort...a lot of canadians...

it's a very naturally occuring phenomenah, i'm just curious if anyone would know what causes such anamolies, you obviously don't know what it is, so suggesting i'm trying to push some stretch of belief magickal phenomenah is sort of pointless, anyone with a few bucks in their pocket can go and witness it...anybody.

Ohhhhh! Now I know what you're talking about. I've been to a place like that in Pennsylvania, it's called Gravity Hill. Yes, the stuff that can happen is freaky. I was about twelve or thirteen and as part of the tour the guide had me sitting in a chair that was supported on a wall by a couple of two inch studs under its back legs, yet I didn't fall.

I had a book once that explained the phenomenon but, alas, that's long gone. Here's a wikipedia write-up that explains it pretty well though, and lists sites worldwide:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_hill

I wrote a rant about this once. I think you can believe in something enough to manifest that thing in some form or another. So, I suppose, it's entirely possible that people so wanted this place to be real, that it became real. It's the whole mind over matter, thing.

some of the "tricks" they have can be explained as a slope inperceptible to the human eye, but there's more going on there than just marbles rolling up hill and being able to seem taller than another person standing opposite each other, how can they make an entire ring of pine trees optically allude them being curved down and over into the direction of the center, while trees just outside the space grow up straight and normal?

There's always the possibility that, while these are places of some sort of power, they might be some sort of gateway to alternate dimensions...

That is, if you believe that sort of thing.

"They" could make them do that through any number of ways. However, I think the question you're asking is why the trees grow that way. I can't answer that. I'm sure that if those trees were studied by a botanist, who would be at last passingly familiar with natural conditions that could affect the trees that way, you could get a list of possibilities. Being familiar with the properties of magnetism, I can't think of anything a magnetic field could do that would warp the growth of a tree.

couldn't that depend on the amount of metal a tree is soaking up through natural methods, if it was some sort of magnetic force?

...we are the "gold and silver" state. ;P

Except that magnetism only works on ferrous metals, like iron, which gold and silver are not.

you and your technical rational.

i'm sure we have a lot of iron around here...someplace.

I can't help it...I'm a rational, skeptical individual. If there's a rational explanation for something, I'll take that over a mystical one.

oh, i don't think there's anything mystical about vortexes, the one locally is too tangible to be supernatural. i have no clue why the people in sedona make such a spiritual connection with theirs...unless it's the magnetism, doesn't that have something to do with a belief that it helps with the body on some level?

like the copper bracelets with magnets that pressed against your wrist pulse?

Which isn't scientifically viable either. I saw a demonstration about it. The basic claim for those magnets is that the magnetic fields help "adjust" your body in some way...a lot of people use magnetic wristbands or wraps for joint pain, for example.

Problem is, most of those magnets don't have fields strong enough to penetrate even the epidermis, let alone down to the joints. I think it's more of a placebo effect than anything else, but hey...whatever gets you through the day, right?

the only copper bracelets i have are large cuffs from india...about three inches wide and encompass my entire wrist...i don't wear them often though, more appropriate for a slave look.

i prefer amethyst to keep my emotions in check. *chuckles*

i can't explain what it was like, really...but there definitly was more to the experience than trick angles and hype.