The Evil Spirit of Gravity Hill

There are numerous locations around the earth where, to our physical senses, gravity appears to go utterly haywire. Happily, geocaching has taken me to a couple of them, both of which are within relatively short driving distance of NC's Piedmont Triad. At such locations, you park your car at the base of a clear uphill slope, put your car in neutral, and disengage the parking brake. Your vehicle will then begin to roll uphill, gathering momentum as it goes.

The one I visited yesterday is in Rowan County, NC, near Morgan Ridge Vineyards, where Ms. Brugger and I spent a pleasant afternoon with some very benevolent spirits. There is another such site in Rockingham County, NC, just south of Danville, VA, where this singular phenomenon is perhaps even more pronounced. The stories around such locations, at least in this region of the country, go more or less as follows: Back in the 17th century, a young woman was convicted of practicing witchcraft and executed by hanging. Before dying, she uttered a curse that, for the rest of eternity, her spirit would drag anyone who visits the place of her execution away to the gallows. After so many years, her spirit remains weak, but it is perpetually gathering strength, and the more people who visit the site, the stronger she gets. Eventually, anyone who trespasses on the cursed ground will be found dead.

When Kimberly and I arrived to hunt the cache at that location, we came upon some folks in a vehicle testing out Gravity Hill for themselves, but they drove off as we approached. After I found the cache — which is housed in a most appropriate container for the site — I parked my car at a point that is, to my senses, absolutely the bottom of the slope; shifted into neutral; and sat back to let the witch do her worst.

She didn't do too badly. My little Ford Focus gathered momentum and rolled well over a hundred feet up the rather steep slope before shaking itself free of the witch's grasp.

Here's a more mundane explanation of the phenomenon, but it was clearly devised by some poor soul who had not the nerve to reveal the reality of ye olde witch and her curse: wikipedia.org/Gravity_hill.

You've no idea how lucky I consider myself for having survived not one but two of these infernal cursed places — not to mention having tramped with my own little feet upon ye old Devill's Tramping Ground, down south of here a ways. I tempts me some fate, I do.