The vortex at Almota on the Snake was not typical, in the sense that the first time I saw it, it was emitting sha qi . The typical vortex is nearly dormant, in that it is seemingly "clogged up" and emitting no qi .

          It was in the hot part of the summer of 2003 that I discovered my first typical vortex. One of the two highest of the the Palouse Hills is Steptoe Butte, the other being Kamiak Butte. While riding to Spokane with Don one day, he informed me that he and Carol had placed TB ’s on Steptoe, but that the hill was still somewhat negative. It was covered with towers of various sorts, including microwave towers, and these were a greater than usual source of sha qi .

          I could feel the sha qi even from my home about 25 miles distant, and so one night after work, I jumped into my pickup and drove up there. There is a road to the summit, and I arrived about a half hour before dark. There was only one other party on the butte at the time, and I was able to wander about pretty much unobserved. There was strong qi beneath the surface, and I found two places near the summit, where the qi below actually touched the surface, and placed a TB in each of these points.

          By the time I reached the main highway on the way home, it was dark, but to my surprise, I could already feel sheng qi _I swirling up from the summit. By next morning the action was much stronger, and clearly perceptible from my home about 25 miles away. It swirled up in the shape of an inverted cone, with its vertex on Steptoe’s summit. Viewed from above, the direction of the swirl was counter-clockwise. I have since found, with no exception, that the flow orientation of an opened vortex is always in this direction. Now, in the spring of 2008 as I write this, the Steptoe vortex is just as strong, if not stronger, than it was then. Furthermore it is the strongest in the Palouse country, which may be the reason that it was the first one of which I became aware.

          At the time I was much impressed: that such an effect could arise from precise gifting of two spots, when the general area had already been gifted, was astounding. In those days I was only beginning to learn how to charge TBs to make them more powerful, and the potency of the two I buried on Steptoe was only slightly better than a simple TB with no extra charge. It seemed to indicate that precision of TB placement could be quite powerful.