I've made two trips to the Rockcastle in the past month. Its been over 5 years since I've had any desire to work on it, maybe in part since I've been occupied with manual labor instead of school. I was hoping some younger stranger would surprise me with something new. I've instead have found it to be torn apart and half rebuilt. Which is where I found it a few weeks ago on a warmish day that inspired me to move a few rocks. I had no preconceived idea that I would actually work on the place but a medium sized rock sitting out on the middle of the floor needed to be moved.
The back (east) wall was mostly gone inside the castle with large stones I'd set in place years ago still hanging on with nothing to help support from below. I enjoyed the way they could remain in place without the stones below but felt a little unhappy that people have to destroy more than they build up. That has been the story since the time I began taking on what once was to what it might become. I have labored before for 5 hours most of one day and by the next there would be havoc wrecked on the work done the day before. I suspected young high schoolers needing to play out their drinking rage. One time in 93 nearly half the wall on top where toppled down filling in the bowl that the castle resembled then. Full destruction prevailed in part thanks to a large wooden staff that I had been using to build with and left out in the open.
The original Rockcastle as I saw it, in what must of been around 1992, (first heard about in 1990 from my brother) was somewhat different than what it has become to be now. My favorite tree has been destroyed in part by man and nature. The south wall is now a rock floor patio accompanied with stairs and seating for those hot summer days under the largest and oldest scrub oak treee on the mountain. My main memory of the walls where that of loose rock piled high with larger flat rocks placed on top the front wall making for great places to sit and look out over the valley.
The Castle today has a front wall made by some local kids who I met just before leaving the other day, earth day. Its been constructed tall and thin for keeping the fire hidden as they described the reason to me. One said, "we didn't know anyone else really knew about the place". I told them a brief account of my brother and his friends and my friends a few years later. They had heard about us. I didn't inquire much and left pretty quickly as to allow the two guys and their girlfriends ample time to enjoy the sunset. Plus I stunk like I'd been moving rock for a few hours.
The first visit this year sparked something within me when I arrived to find the place in a dismal display. The first rock I moved was sitting on the dirt floor of the castle. It didn't appear to be too big to lift onto the back wall. I attempted to lift it without respect for its condensed matter and instantly felt a pull in my lower back. It hurt but I kept on for another hour and half rebuilding the wall. I made sure each time my back was straight and I was using my legs or used the other method of just rolling it up the wall. I find rolling the rocks an enjoyable activity. It amazes me mid movement of rocks that I can control it relatively easy as I control roll up and down walls. I rolled a new rock that I found behind the castle, a piece that must of broke off the 10 foot boulder that skipped through the castle in '05.
My back ached for a couple days until I got an ibuprofen 800 from a friend and stood next to a fire the following friday night. Saturday it felt like new and I was happy until around 7pm when I was checking over my camera gear before leaving for a show in Salt Lake. I bent over while sitting on my desk chair, holding my camera in my lap with knees together an all at once my lower back froze on me and sent pain through out my back and legs. I couldn't unbend my back while I made it to the floor next to my bed. After a couple minutes I somehow struggled to lay on the bed sideways. It took me 20 minutes before I felt safe to get up and even then it was tricky. I missed the show, the Hold Steady, but the last thing I was going have was that same thing happen with a couple hundred people watching an hours drive from home.
The memories of building on the castle are always stirred up by familiar rocks that I have moved a number of times. I'm sure I've moved each stone at the castle at least once if not a half dozen times. Some are like old friends that come alive as I find them under other rocks since the half strewed rebuilding. I can even recall certain moments with others who actually put some work into moving or laying the floor. Steve M. put the big red rock at the start of the floor and it took three of us less time to roll the largest elongated boulder in front of the fire pit for seating than it took for me to persuade them to help roll it. Paul G. and Ryan B. can be credited for that move one summer day.
I hope to add a little extra space around the fire pit by moving the west wall a couple feet out. The base already stretches out in a useless fashion on the bottom outer side. I feel like the wall could be reconstructed to allow safe climbing on all sides. Something I've noticed with people's activity at the castle is that they really want to be able to just move over all of it. So I'll attempt to make it safe from all directions of travel. That takes away from its height in some ways but keeps rocks from being knocked loose and falling on others.
I envisioning there to be stairs made of sitting rocks leading a top the split boulder near the tree. Thinking about opening up the inside of the castle south of the fire pit with these "stairs" that can serve also as a small bowl of its own. I've began to envision a circle of stairs and stone floor around the large tree. Still contemplating a possible archway making use of the split boulder but that is still just a thought.
The fire pit needs to be dug out with its pile of ashes rising up 3 feet above the somewhat buried charcoal covered floor between the sitting rocks and the pit. Which is great stuff for filling in the rock floor which has lost its flatness to erosion between rocks. I've started to work on the front wall in an effort to make it walkable again. The visitors who appeared the other day instantly made use of the part I'd rebuilt. It was good to see someone standing on the wall and looking out over the valley. The fire pit will be elongated to allow more patrons to enjoy. I think it will have the wall directly above it rise higher than the rest of the wall in a roller coaster fashion. Hopefully that will shield fire light from the city and give some wind protection to the fire. Give it some curve appeal too.
Who knows where it will end up. This could be my one last go at it or just one more phase of its constant change. Here are some shots of what it looked like on earth day before I did much to it. Who say's a recession is a bad thing, not when it gives way for working on the castle. I've also contemplated ways to obscure the etching of "the rockcastle" by dirtying it up over time by rubbing dirt and bark in the grooves. Hoping to aid its aging and hide a major regret of it ever existing. The direction I hope to make with aesthetics combines a mix of raw dry stacked rock influence by natural rock fall with the mingling of squared crafted usable compositions in form or stairs and seating.
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