cairns on mountain paths

[Alan Butcher]

If you some of you so dislike cairns, could I suggest you get further away from the trail. I have on an occasion or two found them useful, but I dislike them as well as trail markers or signs.

--
Alan

[Dave Jeffery]

I knock over the ones that are obviously someone's needless alteration of a natural area and as others have mentioned those are usually found in close clusters that would be useless as a trail marker. I aslo spread the rocks around to look like they belong in the scene rather than just kicking the pile over.

The hobby of building these cairns has visually impacted a number of places on Maui and before shooting pictures of some locations a lot of work is needed to dismantle a lot of cairns. The weed on the island is superb and a number of people think that building the cairns helps channel energy into a mythical energy vortex at the area. I have been on trips with divers whose main purpose for diving was to place crystals in certain spots on the reefs to help channel energy to these specific spots as well??

I leave cairns that are trial markers alone but the useless clusters get dismantled, if I have time, to prevent the next group that stops to burn a big fatty from entertaining the idea that they are probably at a magical vortex which may motivate them to build more carins.

At least the cairns are somewhat harmless compared to the spray painting of the rock(s) which is starting to happen.

[Bruce Watson]

I hope that you're saying this in jest. Otherwise you should be taken out and shot.

No one should be taken out and shot. Violence and/or threats of violence aren't the answer. In this case it's not even the problem. The problem is a lack of intellectual vigor that leaves people with nothing else to say other than "... you should be taken out and shot."

[Bill_1856]

No one should be taken out and shot. Violence and/or threats of violence aren't the answer. In this case it's not even the problem. The problem is a lack of intellectual vigor that leaves people with nothing else to say other than "... you should be taken out and shot."

Okay, if not shot, then taken out and as the final, ultimate punishment, forced to read every message in the "Jack Dykinga: Another One Bites The D . ." thread. (Thanks, Brian.)

[Drew Wiley]

Out here they're referred to as "ducks" because it's usually one little stone on top of a
big flat one. Do not destroy them, because they're trail markers on rocky terrain where
the trail might not otherwise be apparent, or where tree blazes are not possible above
timberline. Many older trails, no longer maintained, are marked this way too. Every once in awhile someone lost might have made one like a trail or breadcrumbs, but most
were made by cowboys in the early days, and are now used for shortcuts or clues to
unofficial crosscountry passes etc. Totally different from those "new age" circles and
pillars one find aroud the coast, which both I and the park rangers kick apart, not to mention the anger I felt when one of the last huge old growth redwood trees in the neighborhood had one of those "energy" symbols recently carved in the trunk. Glad I
had photographed it earlier.

[Drew Wiley]

Remembered something else important. I certain places in the desert, like Saline Valley,
stone circles are valuable archaelogical sites. Some of those circles are over 10,000
years old. Their great antiquity is apparent from the desert varnish one the stones.
Totally different from a "peace sign" up on one of the hills, which is more hippie era
vintage obviously. Also, if you destroy a "duck" on an official Sierra trail and get caught
you will face a vandalism fine, since these are part of the trail maintenance itself.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

In Canyonlands coming back up from The Great Gallery in the dark for the very first time by headlamp last fall, I'll admit to being grateful for the confidence check from a few of the rock cairns on the bare rock spots that comprised an old slick-rock jeep mining trail. Elsewhere, stepping off the trail in the desert was rather quickly obvious for the change in surface texture, so they were more convenience and time-saver.

The phrase that always comes back to me is the one from the Wilderness Act of 1964 defining wilderness as "where man visits, but does not remain". Trails do grow over, in time. Large stone rock piles as monuments to man's visits are even more persistent than neon surveyor's tape, and are ubiquitous but largely unnecessary here in the Ventana Wilderness backcountry. The occasional trail-finder might be justified, but here the confounded tape often meanders when someone is lost (they never seem to retrieve it themselves, and it leads later travellers astray). I pluck it and stuff my pockets with it, and knock over any useless little fetish rock piles.

And yes, with some, it seems to be a strange fetish to construct them. One popular state beach here was littered with them a couple of years ago (despite it being a marine sanctuary where all the invertebrates are protected, and the sea bed can't be disturbed). They're a visual blight to me.

[Bruce Watson]

Okay, if not shot, then taken out and as the final, ultimate punishment, forced to read every message in the "Jack Dykinga: Another One Bites The D . ." thread. (Thanks, Brian.)

Aw man, that's just cruel!

[Eric Biggerstaff]

I see many cairns on the trails but the only one that ever seems to bother me is our Cairn Terrier Cooper!

[Mark Barendt]

An archeologist made a presentation to my Rotary club one day talking about Graffiti.

He chose that word.

Petroglyphs and all the other stuff we call history here in the South West of the USA, is essentially graffiti, cave paintings in Europe, graffiti too. This isn't any different than an animal marking it's territory either.

Cairns fit nicely into this category.

Like it or not we are part of the environment. We are natural.