You see it first as a greenish corrugated tin roof hidden in a grove of solid red lodgepole pines. By then, you have hiked three miles, mostly uphill, and are 1,700 feet higher than your starting point 10 miles west of Big Pine in the John Muir Wilderness in the eastern Sierra. A left fork off the main trail places you below a set of stone steps and a massive stone structure. The idea of such a trek is to get away from civilization. So if you aren't expecting what's coming, the 1,288-square-foot granite field stone structure suddenly materializing is a bizarre discovery that, at first glance, can arouse a naturalist's uneasiness at encountering anything man-made in a wilderness setting.
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jun/07/local/me-outthere7