The summer of the pyramid started here
on June 20, 2025!
It has been quite a summer for Pilot Mountain! It began right on time with an Eastern Band of the Cherokee summer solstice ceremony led by Yona FrenchHawk that was hosted by George Howard and Stephanie Mark of Cosmic Summit. That ceremony took place on Pilot Mountain on Friday, June 20, 2025. Author and podcaster Hugh Newman, surprised he had never heard of Pilot Mountain before, compared it to England's Stonehenge as he walked from the picnic pavilion to Little Pinnacle to view the pyramid shadow. A number of individuals observed Pilot Mountain's pyramid-shaped shadow during the solstice Cosmic Summit bus trip. In fact, I have not previously observed such a large gathering at the Little Pinnacle, which included a distinguished group of ancient history enthusiasts, attracted by the efforts of Cosmic Summit producer George Howard.
On July 7, 2025, at 11:11 A.M. a summer ceremony took place on the mountain on the first overlook from the parking area toward the Little Pinnacle, again with Yona FrenchHawk. Well over a dozen turkey buzzards played a role in that ceremony that amazed the small gathering put together that morning. First, three turkey buzzards flew by, then one and later nine flew right over our heads.
Regarding the book, “Faces of Pilot Mountain,” just before Cosmic Summit began the book was accepted and put on the shelves of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It might be down the aisle from the Lewis & Clark journals there. It is such an honor for a first-time author and collector of stories on Pilot Mountain to be a part of the history of the United States!
J.P. and Randall Carlson on June 22, 2024 in Grennsboro, North Carolina
Yona FrenchHawk opening talk at Cosmic Summit on Saturday, June 21, 2025.
J.P., Randall Carlson, Hugh Newman and Greg Maestro on the Little Pinnacle of PIlot Mountain State Park on June 20, 2025.
In any event, enjoy your summer and try to visit the Pilot Mountain in person this summer to recharge in that sacred space. You can drive up to the summit on weekdays easily, but weekends are busy so you might have to walk up then. It takes about eight minutes to drive from the I-52 exit to the top of the mountain! There are only 125 parking spaces on the top and often 200 cars per hour are trying to get up there at peak times. You will find spiritual calm that will restore your energy if you let it by being quiet and still without devices. You simply take your shoes and socks off, even just for a moment, on the huge quartzite slabs on the Little Pinnacle or any safe area you find of your choosing! As I said at the summer solstice ceremony on the 20th, this is a sacred mountain with a scientific foundation to that sacredness right in the quartzite! It is easy to compare the 1,400-foot-tall crystalline Pilot Mountain in terms of celestial orientation with Great Pyramid of Giza, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza, Newgrange, Chaco Canyon, Serpent Mound, Tulum, and the Great Sphinx, but it is right here in North Carolina. In addition to the grand solar/lunar alignments the mountain can affect you personally in subtle ways. When you put pressure on quartzite it produces piezoelectricity!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=+piezoelectricity (Pub Med lists 17,977 results for piezoelectricity depending on your personnel algorithm)
It turned out to be a beautiful evening for the Cosmic Summit bus excursion to witness an Eastern Band of the Cherokee ceremony on Pilot Mountain. The week before the ceremony there was torrential rain and afterward their were extreme heat alerts. However, on the evening of the ceremony the weather was perfect and the fiery red sunset was amazing.
This is a “Where is Waldo?” image above for the summer of the pyramid.
Do you see Dr. Robert Schoch on the left, Cosmic Summit producer George Howard in the back, Dr. Filippo Biondi and Armando Mei of the Khufu Project up in the right corner? Randall Carlson is somewhere in the middle of them up there. They were all trying to look at the pyramid shadow on Pilot Mountain in Surry County, North Carolina. This image above was at the end of a summer solstice ceremony on June 20, 2025 with Eastern Band of the Cherokee wisdom keeper, Yona FrenchHawk. As twilight turned to darkness everyone returned to their bus or car to return to Greensboro. Many said that visiting Pilot Mountain was the perfect start to Cosmic Summit.
Armando Mei and Dr Filippo Biondi of the Khufu Project with J.P. backstage at Cosmic Summit on June 23, 2025.
Posted on the Surry County, North Carolina Reddit board late on June 20, 2025:
Summer solstice ceremony last night on Pilot Mountain
Wanted to offer a special thank you to Superintendent Jason Anthony and the park rangers who worked overtime to help make the Cosmic Summit bus excursion to Pilot Mountain very special. It was an extraordinary kick-off to the ancient history conference. It was a dream come true to have Eastern Band of the Cherokee wisdom keeper, Yona FrenchHawk, and legendary Randall Carlson speak about Pilot Mountain. Yona had done a sunrise marriage ceremony and a sweat lodge in Cashiers and then drove all the way to Pilot Mountain for the summer solstice ceremony on the same day!
I don't know how everyone walked down to the pavilion area and then all the way back up to the Little Pinnacle in time to make the bus home to the convention center in Greensboro. Packed a lot of memories into just a couple of hours. Rather than missing time, it seemed we had some added time and the sunset was magical.
If you don't have anything planned for this first day of summer walking up to buy a ticket to this international speaker filled event is highly recommended. - J.P. McKelvey post on Reddit
