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, 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!
Then on July 30, 2025, both Yona FrenchHawk and the author, J.P. McKelvey, taped a Randall Carlson Podcast. There will be a book celebration when that podcast is released so keep an eye here for that announcement. His podcast has 503k subscribers!
August is a wonderful time to head to the mountains or the beach here in North Carolina. Why not grab either the non-fiction “Faces of Pilot Mountain” that is chock full of stories based on 270 years of written information on the mountain directly quoted from the ancestors writing? Or if you like historical fiction the book “Lessons of Pilot Mountain” will give you an insight into the oral history of Pilot Mountain from the Native American stories about the mountain.
In any event, enjoy your summer and try to visit the mountain in person this summer to recharge in that sacred space. You can drive up to the summit on weekdays but weekends are busy so you might have to walk up then. 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)
J.P. and Randall Carlson on June 22, 2024 in Grennsboro, North Carolina
Available at Amazon in Hardcover, Paperback and Kindle. Just click cover image above.
The summer of the pyramid started here
on June 20, 2025!
J.P., Randall Carlson, Hugh Newman and Greg Maestro on the Little Pinnacle of PIlot Mountain State Park on June 20, 2025
Summer of the pyramid started here !
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.
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
Yona FrenchHawk opening talk at Cosmic Summit on Saturday, June 21, 2025.
Armando Mei and Dr Filippo Biondi of the Khufu Project with J.P. backstage at Cosmic Summit on June 23, 2025.
This image is also on the summer solstice just as the sun went behind the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Yona FrenchHawk returned to the mountain on July 7, 2025 at 11:11 A.M. to continue the honoring of the summer energies. Image by Kathy George of West End Arts Market.
After receiving a feather in the parking lot Yona FrenchHawk accepted a freshly made medicine pouch from a local Cherokee woman from Pilot Mountain.
The mountain started to hum here and we all sang back to it in harmony on June 24, 2025.
Solstice pyramid shadow at Pilot Mountain image by Dave of the Mike & Dave Multiverse Podcast on June 20, 2025.
On June 23, 1823 the UNC-Chapel Hill President Caldwell, Professor Andrews and Professor Olmsted heard a roar like the ocean on a calm day (the full account is in the About The Author section of this website). Was this the same hum we heard also in stillness on the Big Pinnacle trail on June 24, 2025? The professors were on top of the Big Pinnacle above the Pilot Knob Trail in 1823, but not too far away if the rocks were humming on the western side in 2025.
On June 7, 2025 the historical fiction book, “Lessons of Pilot Mountain,” based on extensive oral history stories about the sacred mountain, was released. Later, the book had an official book launch on June 20-24, 2025 at Cosmic Summit in Greensboro, North Carolina.
This is an audience video filmed during the Cosmic Summit bus excursion on June 20, 2025 in 720 that is closed captioned. The video was filmed by Tyrone Ellington, a “rebirthoftheword” podcaster who has become a friend of the author since Cosmic Summit. The cover shot of this video is just moments before the pyramid shadow fades from view in broad daylight as the sun sinks below the Blue Ridge Mountains horizon. We appreciate Tyrone for his help with the Pilot Mountain project with this video and also thank him for his service to our nation during four tours of duty.
This podcast is a very good introduction to Yona FrenchHawk and the work he is doing for the planet plus Pilot Mountain. Yona FrenchHawk was recently hired by Grandfather Mountain State Park to train the park rangers in indigenous ways and give talks to school children there once a month. This was recorded on March 17, 2025 when he was on his way to give four sold out talks at Elon University titled, “Equinox and the Mysteries of Pilot Mountain.” Each talk I went first with the written history of Pilot Mountain for an hour and then the oral history was covered by Yona FrenchHawk in spoken word and song.
Do you have a family story about Pilot Mountain you’d like to share with the public in my next book about the oral history?
Available at Amazon in Hardcover, Paperback and Kindle. Just click cover image above.
