cairns on mountain paths [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

Heroique

5-Mar-2010, 10:15

Cairns, when unnecessary, are annoying indeed, but those I’ve left undisturbed are in places where – even if they have little purpose beyond someone’s vanity – can make a difference when conditions are different.

More than once, even the most “useless” cairns have made it easier for me to follow dangerous areas after a surprise snow shower, or during autumn when new-fallen leaves conceal the terrain. And I’m referring to “vanity” cairns, not directional ones.

But any type of cairn certainly reduces the delight of an unmediated experience in the woods. Of course, trails do that too. That’s one reason why I enjoy cross-country hiking so much. Map & compass in hand, I leave human trails and human cairns behind – sometimes increasing personal risk, but always increasing the personal decisions I get to make. (Psychology note: I’ve so conditioned myself to dislike human cairns, that even when I come across natural ones, I sometimes grimace!)

BTW, what I find even more annoying – very often in the desert SW – are those bright-orange ribbons tied, for example, on Tamaracks and Cottonwoods. They catch (disturb) one’s attention from so far away! I feel an urge to remove them as I pass by – but remember that hikers who placed them there rely on them to “find their way back.” Most of these hikers are conscientious enough to remove them on their return, if not conscientious enough to recognize the ribbon's effect on others.

csant

5-Mar-2010, 10:21

Cairns are mostly used to mark a path, and when moving in an area with very few people those cairns can be a very good reference point. People should not build cairns "just for the fun of it", they are way markers - but so people should not destroy them "just because they would be in their shot". If you don't like cairns, go somewhere where there aren't any - there is enough wilderness even in Europe to hike without cairns in sight… (been there, done that). If you don't like cairns, it is likely you don't like paths either, and those two mostly go together.

Terence McDonagh

5-Mar-2010, 11:08

In the eastern US and UK, they seem to really like them. In the western US, I destroy every single one of them (so do my friends). One who needs to rely on cairns for movement may eventually end up being rescued.

While there's certainly an element of truth to that, the same argument can be made for removing street signs. One who doesn't know what street he's on has no business being there. The street signs are just more visual clutter. Personally, I'd prefer if we cut down every powerline too. They get in the way of my photos a LOT more than cairns.

If the argument is that the cairns are a hazard, maybe we should restrict people from using trails as well? They are certainly a bigger visual blight, and crutch to inexperienced hikers.

My experience out west is that the terrain and trails tend to be much more defined, and there are far fewer trails.

Many of the parks in the east are flat and heavily forested. Sure I can use a compass and map, hunting for a clear spot to sight a landmark, or I could go the GPS route, but a cairn or two in a flat field of rock is (to me) fairly unobtrusive. Not any worse than the ubiquitous trail blazes on trees. But then, maybe you'd paint over those or scrape the bark off the tree too.

Also, there are very few wilderness/backcountry areas in the east, and park usage is much heavier due to population density. The risk of requiring "rescue" outside a handful of parks is darn near nil. Half the trails of my nearest "big" park (Harriman SP) overlook a nuclear power plant.

So while my map-reading skills and GPS-map skills are more than adequate even out west, for a simple afternoon of snowshoeing, a cairn or two really doesn't bother me.

goamules

5-Mar-2010, 11:10

I don't mind the occasional cairn in truly confusing spots. What bothers me is people putting them every 25 yards on a well-trod trail! On the flagging tape, I hate it. It's often used around here to help illegals in their border crossings. That gets removed.

Terence McDonagh

5-Mar-2010, 11:17

And for the record, I've never set a stone myself. But I've often appreciated them when "appropriate".

Brian Ellis

5-Mar-2010, 11:19

Not at all, I appreciate them most of the time. I see many other things that disturb my experience in the woods much more than cairns made from rocks in the natural environment - trails themselves being the most obvious, old campfire sites being another common one that, unlike cairns, serve no purpose. Yeah, the person who needs them might end up being rescued. Or maybe the cairns would have prevented the need for a rescue in the first place. Ever think of that as you were going along merrily destroying cairns because you don't like them?

BrianShaw

5-Mar-2010, 11:23

(Psychology note: I’ve so conditioned myself to dislike human cairns, that even when I come across natural ones, I sometimes grimace!)

Stacks of humans... I'd like to see a LF snappy of one of those! :D

Heroique

5-Mar-2010, 11:25

Fantastic! :p

Daniel_Buck

5-Mar-2010, 11:26

I don't know, I don't seem to mind them.

I don't like seeing spraypaintings or carvings on trees and rocks, those get me angry (same with beer bottles and other trash strewn about) But a little pile of rocks doesn't bother me at all, I don't think that is "defacing" anything.

I sometimes take photos of rock placements, like this one below, it made me smile when I saw it :-)

http://www.buckshotsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/charmlee_8x10_02.jpg

climbabout

5-Mar-2010, 11:32

Cairns are invaluable during the winter when deep snow obscures the trail. Doubly invaluable when visibility suddenly changes to nil as it frequently does in the winter here in the northeast. Anyone who has ever been caught in those conditions would never question their validity or necessity. I've had storms form suddenly on Mt Washington where visiblity drops to a few yards and the cairns are necessary to keep you on the trail - even in the summer.
Tim

Richard Raymond

5-Mar-2010, 12:07

In the east above the tree line cairns are mostly used to keep folks on the path, even when the fog or snow gets thick. There are lots of hikers in a relatively small area. The vegetation above the tree line is very fragile and slow growing (sub arctic growing zones). General wandering off on one's own is allowed but discouraged as most are not aware of the damage they do.
Cairns are also very helpful in the winter for the large group of hikers that climb and photograph year round. While the mountains are lower in the east they are generally more dangerous in winter ... Very high winds and extreme cold. More than 200 people have died, mostly from exposure, on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire ... only a little over 2,000 meters (6,000 ft). Lone cairns often mark escape routes or rescue routes used by search and rescue groups. Destroying what one does not understand may lead to grief for others.

Bill_1856

5-Mar-2010, 12:08

Preston

5-Mar-2010, 13:18

In the Sierra we call 'em 'ducks'. There are thousands of them, most of which serve no useful purpose. When I see a line of ducks, I look to see if they have feathers, walk like a duck and talk like a duck. If they don't--over they go.

I once saw twenty ducks on a scree slope below Thor Peak (on the approach to the east face of Mt. Whitney). The ducks were about 20 feet apart in an area where the route was intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. I knocked them over.

I like ducks, but only the feathered kind. So, Bill, you can shoot me, too. My question to you is; why the vehemence? If you've not seen the blight these things create in the west, I don't see how you can judge.

--P

Alan Butcher

5-Mar-2010, 13:34

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

5-Mar-2010, 14:18

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

5-Mar-2010, 14:19

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

5-Mar-2010, 14:41

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

5-Mar-2010, 15:00

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

5-Mar-2010, 15:06

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

5-Mar-2010, 15:43

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

5-Mar-2010, 15:58

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! :D

Eric Biggerstaff

5-Mar-2010, 16:41

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

Mark Barendt

5-Mar-2010, 17:25

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.

Michael Gordon

5-Mar-2010, 18:03

Michael Gordon

5-Mar-2010, 18:13

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.

Drew: like you, I've spent a lot of time in the Sierra, but I've yet to see an "official" cairn. What exactly is the point of placing a cairn on an official and signed trail? Can you tell me what trails you know this to be the case?

goamules

5-Mar-2010, 18:19

Ancient cairns (never seen one) and miner's historic claim markers (seen many) are different than then little piles every few feet the OP refers to. Saying a wilderness traveler may need them so they are acceptable is like saying we need to pave the trails, light them, and put handrails up. That's done in some places, but not in true wilderness where you must have some skills.

DJGainer

5-Mar-2010, 18:44

Brian Ellis

5-Mar-2010, 18:58

The issue with cairns - at least in California - is that they are not placed by "officials" (that's what trail signs are for) so one who is lost and thinks that the cairn before them may help, may end up getting further in trouble by following them. I have found cairns in all manners of places, and often find cairns leading to dead-ends on technical terrain. Because there are no official instructions for properly placing them, any individual that feels like it places a cairn wherever they feel like it (often to help themselves with no concern for those who follow). Some are definitely useful, most are not.

I destroy cairns not because I take pleasure in it, but rather because most of them may lure the inexperienced and unsuspecting into trouble. I leave those that have definite value (and that is usually well off-trail in technical terrain).

As one person who enjoys hiking but isn't going to win the Mr. Woodsman award, I can tell you that I've never - not once - been misled by a cairn, never - not once - followed cairns that led to a dead-end, and I've been helped by them many times. And I spend around a day a week or more hiking in woods, often in areas with which I'm not familiar and so pay attention to cairns, at least when you or some other self-appointed king of the woods hasn't decided what's best for me and knocked them down.

Drew Wiley

5-Mar-2010, 19:16

Michael - of course in the high Sierra you don't have any cairns, but only ducks with
two or three rocks. There are plenty of rough sections where even an "official" trail
would not be obvious otherwise, like Italy Pass for example. Ducks have been trail
markers for well over a century. Since I still do a lot of cross-country, it is often interesting to pick one's own route only to discover that someone had been there long before, and not randomly. Some of these were old cattlemen's or sheepherders
trails, or shortcuts by horse packers or climbers, and some are remnants of abandoned earlier "official" trails. As someone who grew up in that culture and even
at one time resented some of the "taming" of the backcountry by too many trail
improvements, I can understand what went on, and often take an interested in
following the abandoned routes of former times. I'll take it two steps further than that even - I listened to stories of Indians who crossed the passes in aboriginal times before even meeting a white man, and personally did cutting-edge research on ice age use of the mountains by peoples who crossed glaciers long since vanished, and left remarkable artifacts in remote and high places historic Indians never visited. One of the first things you teach a beginning backpacker is how to follow blazes and ducks. They might lead you the astray, but it's far better than guessing if one becomes lost. There were many, many routes used before the official trail were ever formalized. Nowadays there are guidebooks and GPS devices,
but those aren't any fun, and might get you into trouble a lot faster than the wisdom
of some long gone sheepherder.

Drew Wiley

5-Mar-2010, 19:34

Remembered a few more things. When you grow up in a tiny town where someone
like Orland Bartholomew was still alive - the "last of the mtn men", who did a south
to north winter trek of the high Sierra, Whitney to Yosemite, on homemade wooden
skis, sleeping in a buffalo hide at night -fully fifty years before anyone repeated it -
or lived a quarter mile from an old man who still had a grudge on an old Indian
because they remembered firing shots at each other before the Indians were pacified - or you had a sheepherder across the road who acquired his land from the
Indians - and on and on, the hundreds of pioneer tales of what went on in that country long before the Sierra club starting sending convoys into it - then the history
becomes quite interesting, because you're directly connected to it. Cowboys and Indians weren't TV to me - I grew up with them; and in that kind of setting, hearing
all the lore of the past was a big part of it too. Ever hear a first person account about someone really killing off a grizzly with a buck knife - and not some Hollywood version?

walter23

5-Mar-2010, 21:58

Does anyone else find these annoying when not used to mark an important location? Seems like every popular hiking trail has an unnatural abundance of them; clusters of them in many cases.

Yeah, it's become really trendy to do this kind of stuff. I find them all over the beaches too, along with driftwood constructions. I sort of imagine the people who make them congratulate themselves for being so eco-chic, but to me it's just another way that humans are making natural places less pleasing.

However, there's a fun game you can play with them, which takes away the irritation somewhat; you can play "try to reassemble a natural looking degree of disorder from these piled up rocks and/or driftwood." It's a little more challenging than it sounds at first, because you can't just knock them down; you have to move them around and make the right kind of distribution of small & large pieces. Also you have to pay attention to things like moss and/or weathering to make sure the right sides are facing up. It's actually kind of fun.

Some people get weird about this stuff though. I deconstructed something on a beach once and some drunk assholes confronted me for "destroying" it (they hadn't made it, and in any event the act of deconstructing it is no less legitimate than the act of constructing it). It was kind of weird.

I'm sure most of them are built by well meaning artistic folk waiting for their fellow hikers to catch their breath or finish a snack. I think it's only slightly more sophisticated than a dog taking a leak every 100 yards on it's walk.

Little kids, too, sometimes.

Jack Dahlgren

5-Mar-2010, 23:07

Some people get weird about this stuff though. I deconstructed something on a beach once and some drunk assholes confronted me for "destroying" it (they hadn't made it, and in any event the act of deconstructing it is no less legitimate than the act of constructing it). It was kind of weird.

Did you see any sandcastles to step on while you were there? It is just as legitimate to destroy them as to make them. Don't mind the kids, they don't know what legitimate means anyway. Petroglyphs too. Rip all that stuff up.

I guess I just don't have the same sense of outrage at a couple of rocks stacked up that others do... Does this mean I'm autistic?

walter23

5-Mar-2010, 23:44

PenGun

6-Mar-2010, 02:02

I figure they are for people with a broken sense of direction and distance.

I like to wing it. It's over that way ... lets go. Point to point is a lot of fun. I even have a game I play where I get from point to point as fast as possible. Kinda primate unleashed in the bush. I keep that one fairly short these days, I'm old.

The cairns just make me smile. Like the groups with sticks and water bottles earnestly hiking. In my area there are mountain streams everywhere, why would you carry water? Don't get me started on the stupid sticks.

Stephane

6-Mar-2010, 03:01

Upsetting threat that reveal a group of self-righteous people who take pleasure in destroying things, this behavior to me is bordering racism or religious fanaticism, both of which are definitely not tolerant with others. No shame in speaking out and proud of their doings.
We all share this planet, but how the f**k we can we do it if a pile of stone along a path can cause so much negative feelings and reactions...

Thebes

6-Mar-2010, 03:39

When hiking the AT in the Presidentials I found the cairns to be extremely useful especially in bad weather.

PLEASE do not kick them over if they might at some point be a necessary navigational aid. If they are really needed and not someone's idea of rock-art then kicking it over might contribute to the injury or death of a fellow hiker.

Remember that not everyone is hiking on a nice sunny day like you are. I know plenty of experienced long distance hikers who had trouble finding the next cairn in a storm. To think someone might have intentionally kicked them over makes my blood boil.

goamules

6-Mar-2010, 07:27

Bill_1856

6-Mar-2010, 07:28

In my area there are mountain streams everywhere, why would you carry water?

Giardosis.

6-Mar-2010, 08:01

Thanks for the many responses, it has been quite interesting! I do understand how a few sparse cairns could be useful in preventing a rescue on Mount Washington or other 12 month a year snowy places. Barring snow cover, I prefer a little dab of paint on a rock for a trail marker; the paint isn't distracting in photos and will naturally disappear in a couple of years.

Here's a scene where things get really out of hand, to show an extreme. (Camden ME)

http://www.f64.nu/albums2007/album114/DSC1583.sized.jpg

Yeah, it's become really trendy to do this kind of stuff. I find them all over the beaches too, along with driftwood constructions. I sort of imagine the people who make them congratulate themselves for being so eco-chic, but to me it's just another way that humans are making natural places less pleasing.

However, there's a fun game you can play with them, which takes away the irritation somewhat; you can play "try to reassemble a natural looking degree of disorder from these piled up rocks and/or driftwood." It's a little more challenging than it sounds at first, because you can't just knock them down; you have to move them around and make the right kind of distribution of small & large pieces. Also you have to pay attention to things like moss and/or weathering to make sure the right sides are facing up. It's actually kind of fun.

Be careful, you might mess up their feng shui in the process :D

Thebes

6-Mar-2010, 08:06

There is always a dichotomy between the Control-conformity crowd and the Confident-individualism crowd. But the idea that a hiker is out in a blizzard, anxiously scanning with his binoculars for the next cairn so they can move forward another few yards is ridiculous. When you are a "long distance hiker" you use maps and woodsman skills, you don't rely on some farcical stack of rocks to lead you.

But again, I've crossed a stream or a patch of slick rock where the "exit" was marked with a stack. And I think "good, I'm going the right way", as most would. But I also think the stack is about as useful as those warnings that say, "Open package before eating", "don't operate radio in bathtub", etc. Other than in rare, tricky spots, if you need a path dotted with little cairns, you should stay at home with your aluminum walking stick and GPS.

Binoculars??? No no no, its more like your partner goes forward in the talus and scree and tries to find the next cairn while you stay at the current one.

FYI by the time my wife and I got to the Presidentials we'd hiked over 1500 miles each as had all of our friends who similarly had problems in the mist and fog and sleet and rocks and could also not see more than about 20 feet.

There are some places that have no woods, no dirt. There are places that humans leave very few footprints to tell where they have been. I guess you aren't enough of a hiker to have aver been in such a place during truly horrible weather?

So, basically, go stick it.

BTW, those little aluminum poles were LOVED by through-hikers... I'd have dropped off the AT in Virginia with fudged up knees if not for them. So again, stick it.

You and others are just trying to cover your reckless disregard for human life when you kick over a line of cairns so they aren't in your more precious than my life photograph.

BTW the Appalachian Mountain Club, the official maintaining body for the AT in the Presidential Range, they actually build many of those cairns. I suppose maybe I should cut down the ugly no passing signs on the highway because they mess up my pictures???

cowanw

6-Mar-2010, 09:43

And when are you going to get rid of that nasty eyesore of a defaced rock, The Independance Rock: talk about graffitti! It should be sandblasted to return it to its natural state.:confused:
Up in the north north, we wouldn't dream of disturbing an Inukshuk. Bad Kharma (to mix cultural appropriations)
Regards
Bill

Kirk Gittings

6-Mar-2010, 09:53

In some areas of New Mexico, some cairns are believed to be pre-historic, particularly near old Navajo residential sites where they appear to be some kind of boundary markers. I have seen some almost 8 feet high on some restricted Pueblo lands with associated pottery chards that suggest great antiquity. I don't always assume here that they are recent or of no cultural value.

Marko

6-Mar-2010, 10:13

Did you see any sandcastles to step on while you were there? It is just as legitimate to destroy them as to make them. Don't mind the kids, they don't know what legitimate means anyway. Petroglyphs too. Rip all that stuff up.

I guess I just don't have the same sense of outrage at a couple of rocks stacked up that others do... Does this mean I'm autistic?

No, Jack, it only means that you are one of the remaining few who seem to have enough of a life to NOT be bothered by other people's abilities, tastes and choices in life.

I thought the type of behaviour (some would call it pathology but I prefer a more diplomatic approach ;)) exhibited in the usual film vs. digital, canon vs. nikon, pc vs. mac and such "discussions" was limited to toy (or technology)-related topics, but this thread indicates that it might be a more general human trait after all.

Wonder if junk-food aficionados take similar umbrage to someone else's choice of, say, a Fatburger or a Junkburger when the entire world knows the Jackburger trumps both?

:rolleyes:

Frank Petronio

6-Mar-2010, 10:34

I throw my beer cans out the car window, per Edward Abbey. It's not the beer can on the side of the road that is the eyesore and environmental problem... it's the road itself.

Kirk Gittings

6-Mar-2010, 11:10

I throw my beer cans out the car window, per Edward Abbey. It's not the beer can on the side of the road that is the eyesore and environmental problem... it's the road itself.

I actually had the dubious honor of witnessing this in the summer of 73 about. Edward Abbey, our mutual friend, painter John DePuy and myself, heading north to Tres Piedras from John's house in Ojo Caliente. Were in John's pickup, drinking beer (Bud probably), Abbey pontificating as usual and to my horror, Abbey is pitching his beer cans out the window! Seeing the expression on my face Abbey proceeded to give me the above lecture (many people witnessed this and similar events with Abbey, he liked to not act like what people expected him to be-a tree hugging sentimental environmentalist).

Thanks for the fond memory Frank, I hadn't thought of that in a long time.

Toyon

6-Mar-2010, 11:16

[QUOTE=Frank Petronio;566430]I throw my beer cans out the car window, per Edward Abbey. It's not the beer can on the side of the road that is the eyesore and environmental problem... it's the road itself.[/QUOTE

Yeah that, and the driver.

Drew Wiley

6-Mar-2010, 11:56

My favorite Ed Abbey line: "Mountain lions eat sheep. Now anything that eats sheep
can't be all that bad". Wish they'd eat a few of those new age hippies too that build
those goofy rings and piles (hope none of my neighbors are listening).

Heroique

6-Mar-2010, 12:14

A fun anecdote, Kirk.

Like others here, I’ve read a lot of Abbey – I’ve read a lot of his critics, too.

(Abbey is better than his critics.)

And he tweaks the meaning of this thread: I suspect he’d be a “cairn-kicker.”

It takes some care to appreciate him. We need him back.

Kirk Gittings

6-Mar-2010, 13:10

Abbey was........insightful, erasable, brilliant, obstinate, open minded and closed minded, a lover of women and a misogynist, a fierce defender of the environment and a litterbug-what can I say? He was to me a reflection of the West-a sum of contradictions. He was a close friend to many friends of mine. Though I socialized with him many times, I never felt like I knew him. I turned down an invitation from him to hike into the Maze, which I have always kicked myself for, otherwise I would probably know him better. It would have been a week of arguing-he was an Anarchist and I was a Maoist. I love his writings.

I found a clip of John DePuy reminiscing about Abbey. For those of you who don't know about Abbey, it will give you some insights about his life and times. I had a falling out with DePuy and thereby lost contact with Abbey in about 75, DePuy thought I was having an affair with his 3rd wife (I wasn't). He got drunk and tried to shoot us with a 6 gun.....and missed.....ah those were the days.....I was 23 at the time, a white boy from the burbs of Albuquerque.......God I love New Mexico.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW7eBcq39bk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW7eBcq39bk)

This should be in the Dykinga thread, he knew Abbey too.

PenGun

6-Mar-2010, 13:50

Giardosis.

I drink well water anyway. My immune system is used to it. I'll take my chances with nature. You can carry, probably fairly ugly water, in possibly dangerous, plastic containers.

A lot of the bottled water is just filtered tap water. The tap water in the cities I visit I don't even like to shower in let alone drink. Vancouver's water is fairly good they say but I don't like it.

PenGun

6-Mar-2010, 13:52

I throw my beer cans out the car window, per Edward Abbey. It's not the beer can on the side of the road that is the eyesore and environmental problem... it's the road itself.

I've been hit by assholes tossing cans. I was on my bike, he got away. I might have opted for hospital time had I caught him.

Frank Petronio

6-Mar-2010, 14:06

At last Kirk and I found common ground ;-) I'm looking at my 30-year old, 20x read copy of The Monkey Wrench Gang and even though my politics have changed since the Earth First days (in Eugene, Oregon no less) I especially appreciate Abbey's irrelevance and idealistic love of anarchy and freedom. Kirk was lucky to have known him.

Why wasn't this book made into a movie? Too politically sensitive or did his screenplay get lost in Hollywood's options and rights maze?

Thebes

6-Mar-2010, 14:11

I half suspect that Abbey would have thrown down his beer cans next to the Appalachian Trail in the Presidentials as well. If you've hiked there you'll probably understand why I would never consider them to be real wilderness. We, and I mean the through-hikers from 2001, called the AMC the Appalachian Money Club for their bizarre system of ”huts”. I would more understand an eco-warrior burning them than I would someone kicking over the cairns, which people reasonably expect to be there in a storm.

Kirk- I had not heard before about prehistoric cairns, very interesting. Many people around the outlaw type areas near Carson and Tres Piedras use cairns to mark their property today, and I would love to know more about the ancient ones. Some of these modern ones end up with flattened beer cans, doll parts, shell casings, etc, stacked into them... kicking those over would be taken as an assault upon the owner's property boundaries and I could see a six-gun being drawn over it.

PenGun

6-Mar-2010, 15:01

BTW, those little aluminum poles were LOVED by through-hikers... I'd have dropped off the AT in Virginia with fudged up knees if not for them. So again, stick it.

Yes they do love their poles. I begrudge the carry. If you have knee problems I can recommend squats. Deadlifts too but squats with some weight builds pretty strong knees and associated tissue.

You and others are just trying to cover your reckless disregard for human life when you kick over a line of cairns so they aren't in your more precious than my life photograph.

BTW the Appalachian Mountain Club, the official maintaining body for the AT in the Presidential Range, they actually build many of those cairns. I suppose maybe I should cut down the ugly no passing signs on the highway because they mess up my pictures???

I dunno if you really need cairns consider a GPS device. I have one for motorcycle exploring, it finds me trails on GoolgeEarth. On foot I can just walk out, I don't get lost. There are a few of us like that.

Drew Wiley

6-Mar-2010, 18:08

Had a little contest a couple of times last year with a hiking pal. We were taking a
shortcut between two basins in the high country. He was fairly fit, half my age, carrying half my pack weight, and using a GPS. On the other hand, I'm a middle-age
plodder with a view camera to lug, but quite a bit more experience. He'd pick his
route GPS, while I'd just wander. The snow was fairly deep in sections with quite a
bit of downfall in the forested areas, some cliff and tricky stream crossings, etc.
Sure enough the old goat (me)won by a handy margin; but in the process I encountered the little "ducks"of some predecessors. Eventually he gave up and followed me and the ducks too. When we tried the same game in the fall I had to call it off when his GPS was about to lead him straight into a cliff at the back side of a high col. I didn't need a topo or anything - just knew the geology.

Bill_1856

6-Mar-2010, 18:41

As long as you're making the world safe for photography, would you self-appointed Ricky Rangers please make a big difference, and take out those pesky redwoods in front of the Yosemite Valley overlook? They're really annoying.

Brad Rippe

6-Mar-2010, 20:34

I think the idea of some of these cairns being historic is very interesting. The US Cavalry built an early system of trails in Yosemite, many of them in use today. But there are many that have been bypassed and are now forgotten. There is a particularly intact trail segment near May Lake that hasn't been used for decades, constructed with great care and skill, parts of which are lined with rock to level the path a bit. I'm sure there are rock cairns associated with these old trails and it might be difficult to discern their age.
-Brad

sun of sand

6-Mar-2010, 23:42

I don't care
I like em
rather someone build something than graffiti a rock face

But I did notice one of these a few weeks ago

about 7 inches high
right on the side of the road
just ordinary road

that's odd
cant help but imagine what kind of life the builder leads
just

hey let me pick up some stones and place them here
dude, why you doing that?

you gonna help or not

Fk it
yeah I'll help

Marko

7-Mar-2010, 10:24

just ordinary road

that's odd
cant help but imagine what kind of life the builder leads
just

hey let me pick up some stones and place them here
dude, why you doing that?

And it all comes to down to that, doesn't it?

The same question that can be (and frequently does get) asked about our photography.

How many non-photographers understand why would anybody photograph a rusted chain fence, or a rundown barn or just a bunch of rocks lying around?

We do because we see the beauty in those, but they don't and they call the cops on us and then we get mad. Would it be such a stretch of imagination to realize that someone may simply see the beauty in what we see as annoyance? Or that they may get irritated for having their fun ruined by our misunderstanding?

Why is it so hard to just live and let others live?

Kirk Gittings

7-Mar-2010, 12:08

Greg Miller

7-Mar-2010, 12:29

I dunno if you really need cairns consider a GPS device. I have one for motorcycle exploring, it finds me trails on GoolgeEarth. On foot I can just walk out, I don't get lost. There are a few of us like that.

Try going above treeline in the Northeast in a whiteout blizzard or heavy cloud/fog (not always predictable at the trailhead) where you are lucky to see your feet. Those cairns become pretty precious, and at times you are wishing there are more of them so you don't have to rope up with your partner and play leap frog with one hiker staying at a cairn why the other blindly seeks out the next cairn. You don't really want to be wandering around staring at your GPS which isn't picking up any satellites or is running low on batteries. Especially on Mount Washington where more people have died than on any other mountain in the U.S. and which is the windiest place on the planet, where the typical 50+ MPH winds are literally blowing you off of your feet (so hanging onto a GPS is not a wise or practical thing to do).

PenGun

7-Mar-2010, 12:58

Try going above treeline in the Northeast in a whiteout blizzard or heavy cloud/fog (not always predictable at the trailhead) where you are lucky to see your feet. Those cairns become pretty precious, and at times you are wishing there are more of them so you don't have to rope up with your partner and play leap frog with one hiker staying at a cairn why the other blindly seeks out the next cairn. You don't really want to be wandering around staring at your GPS which isn't picking up any satellites or is running low on batteries. Especially on Mount Washington where more people have died than on any other mountain in the U.S. and which is the windiest place on the planet, where the typical 50+ MPH winds are literally blowing you off of your feet (so hanging onto a GPS is not a wise or practical thing to do).

I would be fairly well equipped in a situation like that. My sense of direction seems to be infallible, 63 years and counting, and I've been in whiteouts before. Grew up in Whitehorse for a while. I just use GPS for my motorcycle. It need trails and roads.

In the situation you describe, if you do not know the country a GPS might save your life. If you get blown off the mountain the rest is academic.

Greg Miller

7-Mar-2010, 13:11

I would be fairly well equipped in a situation like that. My sense of direction seems to be infallible, 63 years and counting, and I've been in whiteouts before. Grew up in Whitehorse for a while. I just use GPS for my motorcycle. It need trails and roads.

In the situation you describe, if you do not know the country a GPS might save your life. If you get blown off the mountain the rest is academic.

My point was that it is not practical to use a GPS in those conditions.

The cairns have a very serious purpose, and combined with a solid base of wilderness experience are much more dependable and worthwhile than a GPS. It would be unconscionable to send someone out being solely dependent on a GPS. They can be dropped and broken, they can run out of battery, they can fail to pick up enough satellite signals, and they can be extremely difficult to use in difficult weather. But the cairns are always there. So while a GPS can be a nice tool, a person better be prepared to work without one.

goamules

7-Mar-2010, 13:44

... I guess you aren't enough of a hiker to have aver been in such a place during truly horrible weather?

So, basically, go stick it.

BTW, those little aluminum poles were LOVED by through-hikers... I'd have dropped off the AT in Virginia with fudged up knees if not for them. So again, stick it.

You and others are just trying to cover your reckless disregard for human life when you kick over a line of cairns so they aren't in your more precious than my life photograph.

Easy Francis. Basically, for the record, I don't bother kicking over Cairns. Most of my time is in true wilderness, like the Gila, and the dayhikers that I suspect build cairns don't go back any further than a couple miles from the trailhead. I've never seen cairns in the heart of the Gila, I mean. I never see people in general. And if you are backpacking, why do you care if you get lost for a few days? You've got your tent and supplies for foul weather right? I'm for the Edward Abbie method, don't alter ANYTHING. And he pulled up marker stakes in the beginning of Desert Solitaire if I recall....

PenGun

7-Mar-2010, 13:46

My point was that it is not practical to use a GPS in those conditions.

The cairns have a very serious purpose, and combined with a solid base of wilderness experience are much more dependable and worthwhile than a GPS. It would be unconscionable to send someone out being solely dependent on a GPS. They can be dropped and broken, they can run out of battery, they can fail to pick up enough satellite signals, and they can be extremely difficult to use in difficult weather. But the cairns are always there. So while a GPS can be a nice tool, a person better be prepared to work without one.

The cairns are only useful if you can see them. What you describe, a whiteout, is literally blinding. At least a GPS would give you some chance.

If you wander off without batteries and with a delicate crappy GPS device you deserve the poor equipment Darwin award anyway.

It's usually better to hunker down in those situations unless you have to move.

Greg Miller

7-Mar-2010, 15:31

The cairns are only useful if you can see them. What you describe, a whiteout, is literally blinding. At least a GPS would give you some chance.

If you wander off without batteries and with a delicate crappy GPS device you deserve the poor equipment Darwin award anyway.

It's usually better to hunker down in those situations unless you have to move.

In virtually all cases, a GPS is nice, but should never be used as the primary navigation device. To rely on a GPS in these conditions is folly. There are so many reasons a GPS can fail. If that is your best option, and it fails, then you are in serious trouble.

domaz

10-Mar-2010, 10:50

As soon as someone is lost they build a cairn. At least that's the way it is around here in the mountains- you follow they at your peril.

sun of sand

10-Mar-2010, 15:38

And it all comes to down to that, doesn't it?

The same question that can be (and frequently does get) asked about our photography.

How many non-photographers understand why would anybody photograph a rusted chain fence, or a rundown barn or just a bunch of rocks lying around?

We do because we see the beauty in those, but they don't and they call the cops on us and then we get mad. Would it be such a stretch of imagination to realize that someone may simply see the beauty in what we see as annoyance? Or that they may get irritated for having their fun ruined by our misunderstanding?

Why is it so hard to just live and let others live?

your quote button isn't working to its potential

you gonna help or not

Fk it
yeah I'll help

I don't care about what people do for the most part
I'm not easily annoyed
but building stuff on
it was literally -on- the shoulder of the road
I'm not saying it's dangerous but
It's odd

you cant expect me to believe you don't -if even to only yourself- remark on certain things you find strange
If a clown walks past you at a Christmas Eve party I'm sure you'd be looking to see where hes headed

rdenney

11-Mar-2010, 10:53

...Abbey pontificating as usual and to my horror, Abbey is pitching his beer cans out the window!

I figure Abbey was a sort of self-amalgamation of Doc Sarvis, Seldom Seen Smith, and George Hayduke. Probably Hayduke when drinking, Smith when courting "wimmin", and Sarvis when being serious.

Rick "'Anarchy is not the answer!'" Denney

p.s. Kicking over cairns is an act of anarchy. Trails are there to be used by people, and not everyone has the skills to follow a seldom-used trail on slickrock without cairns that are visible one to the next. Kicking them over invites people to make their own path, which is more destructive than the cairns.

R "who picks up litter, but otherwise leaves things as he finds them" D

rdenney

11-Mar-2010, 10:57

he was an Anarchist and I was a Maoist.

My! I could have been along and we'd have ended up killing each other, heh.

(I love New Mexico, too, despite being from Texas.)

Rick "one of those civil engineers he liked so much" Denney

rdenney

11-Mar-2010, 11:13

In virtually all cases, a GPS is nice, but should never be used as the primary navigation device. To rely on a GPS in these conditions is folly. There are so many reasons a GPS can fail. If that is your best option, and it fails, then you are in serious trouble.

Even with WAAS, GPS is only accurate to 15 or 20 feet. In the Shenendoah mountains where I hike, and where unexpected fog in the middle of a 10 or 12-mile day hike isn't unexpected, 15 feet may be the entire width of the ridge between two cliffs.

As for sticks, I use one. I also bring my own water. I may not be much of a woodsman, but my hikes usually follow ridge lines, and even I know that water flows downhill. But I don't fancy drinking water laced with the excrement of a zillion deer and other fauna in any case. My legs are strong enough, but as I age my coordination ain't what it used to be, and the stick is useful for catching myself when I stumble.

We've spent much time on those trails trying to figure out where the trail actually is. A few cairns here and there would actually be kinda nice.

Rick "reading a lot of 'when I was a kid, we walked to school in the snow uphill both ways' stories in this thread" Denney

walter23

11-Mar-2010, 11:29

The cairns just make me smile. Like the groups with sticks and water bottles earnestly hiking. In my area there are mountain streams everywhere, why would you carry water? Don't get me started on the stupid sticks.

A friend at work (Vancouver) signed up for a hiking club. Task number one was to buy a huge list of hiking related items, like a water purifying pump, various layered bits of clothing, footwear, etc. He's been a member for months now and still hasn't actually gone on a hike ;)

Maybe it's just Vancouver's culture, but it seems that nobody can just *do stuff* anymore - you have to approach it as if you were an olympic athlete. You can't ride your bike, you have to be a cyclist with a tour-de-france spandex outfit and all that. You can't go for a hike, you have to be a backcountry expert with a thousand dollars worth of technical clothing.

Really you should just throw on some clothes and go for a walk. Granted you don't want to wear a cotton T-shirt if you're sweating your way up a mountain (wool or synthetic so you don't freeze if the weather changes!), but beyond that.... going overboard is pretty silly.

Drew Wiley

11-Mar-2010, 13:09

I've got a wonderful compromise solution for this debate. Why not just build cairns
using a heap of dysfunctional GPS devices?

Greg Miller

11-Mar-2010, 13:32

Even with WAAS, GPS is only accurate to 15 or 20 feet. In the Shenendoah mountains where I hike, and where unexpected fog in the middle of a 10 or 12-mile day hike isn't unexpected, 15 feet may be the entire width of the ridge between two cliffs.

As for sticks, I use one. I also bring my own water. I may not be much of a woodsman, but my hikes usually follow ridge lines, and even I know that water flows downhill. But I don't fancy drinking water laced with the excrement of a zillion deer and other fauna in any case. My legs are strong enough, but as I age my coordination ain't what it used to be, and the stick is useful for catching myself when I stumble.

We've spent much time on those trails trying to figure out where the trail actually is. A few cairns here and there would actually be kinda nice.

Rick "reading a lot of 'when I was a kid, we walked to school in the snow uphill both ways' stories in this thread" Denney

Yes, and GPS will send you in a straight line to your next waypoint, which might be straight over a cliff, instead of the nice switchback down the flank side. GPS in the backcountry is very different than GPS in a car. Even in a car you could be 30 feet off the side of the road before the GPS self corrects and calculates a new route.

PenGun

11-Mar-2010, 14:26

Yes, and GPS will send you in a straight line to your next waypoint, which might be straight over a cliff, instead of the nice switchback down the flank side. GPS in the backcountry is very different than GPS in a car. Even in a car you could be 30 feet off the side of the road before the GPS self corrects and calculates a new route.

My GPS device, an USB NMEA that plugs in to my laptop which runs GooglEarth from a 2 Gig cache is very accurate. Which side of the logging road accurate.

Here's the thing. A USB device is useful to show you where you are and to possibly plan a route. It is not a substitute for your eyes. If you are dumb enough to follow a USB device off a cliff you don't understand them and probably should not be using one.

Greg Miller

11-Mar-2010, 14:46

My GPS device, an USB NMEA that plugs in to my laptop which runs GooglEarth from a 2 Gig cache is very accurate. Which side of the logging road accurate.

Here's the thing. A USB device is useful to show you where you are and to possibly plan a route. It is not a substitute for your eyes. If you are dumb enough to follow a USB device off a cliff you don't understand them and probably should not be using one.

Or you can just stay on the trail by following the cairns. If you can't see the next one you just send your partner out on a rope or use vocals. If you are by yourself you can still do it with a rope. And no batteries required, unlike GPS devices that chew through batteries like crazy. A GPS is no better than a compass in the situation that you describe, and a compass does not need a battery. People successfully managed for centuries without GPS. I know plenty of wilderness navigation experts, none of them depend on a GPS, and the few that own one hardly ever use them. I own one but never actually encountered a situation where I found the need or desire to look at it. So it stays at home in a gear bin. The only time I use one for navigation is as a last ditch safety measure (like being caught in the dark in a snow storm where the blazes on the trees are covered with new snow, and my compass is broken), which has never been needed.

Greg Miller

11-Mar-2010, 15:08

walter23

11-Mar-2010, 17:03

You, an Earth First!, Eugene OR hippie? Hah! That's awesome.

You should read "The Rebel Sell". It's about how the whole underpinning of the hippie culture was not the selfless social concern that it often pretended to be but rather a self-centered need to be rebellious and different, and how exactly this same urge is what drives modern consumer culture. ("Want to keep being different? Get that huge honkin' SUV! It'll do the same for you that the VW van did back in the 60s man.") Same is true of modern anti-consumerism, really.

At last Kirk and I found common ground ;-) I'm looking at my 30-year old, 20x read copy of The Monkey Wrench Gang and even though my politics have changed since the Earth First days (in Eugene, Oregon no less) I especially appreciate Abbey's irrelevance and idealistic love of anarchy and freedom. Kirk was lucky to have known him.

Why wasn't this book made into a movie? Too politically sensitive or did his screenplay get lost in Hollywood's options and rights maze?

walter23

11-Mar-2010, 17:06

Why is it so hard to just live and let others live?

I got no beef with others building structures on the trails or on the beach. Likewise I have no issue with dismantling them; it's an exactly equivalent action, morally.

BTW I'm talking about non-navigational things like beach driftwood constructions, piles of rocks, little inukshuks that have become so popular since the olympics took that as a symbol here, etc. I find them mildly unsightly, but mostly just enjoy the challenge of reassembling a fake "natural" look out of them. It's actually pretty challenging to get it right. You can't just knock a pile of something over and have it look like it happened by wind and waves.

PenGun

11-Mar-2010, 17:29

But I am getting a good chuckle at the thought of encountering someone in the backcountry in bad weather with a laptop out and plugging in their USB GPS device.

I travel extensively on my motorcycle in the back country of BC. We have 80,000K of gazetted logging roads on Vancouver Island alone.

It is a real challenge sometimes to find a way to get to the next road system. I carry it for that. It charges from the bike but I just fire it up and check my position and one charge can last for days. Unless i get into the campfire Adult Swim cartoons that is.

I never carry it on foot. I carry very little actually. Nylon kids pack with a sandwich if I'm going far. My tiny Kershaw Ken Onion and that's all, unless the Chamonix needs feeding that is.

kev curry

12-Mar-2010, 00:32

PenGun

12-Mar-2010, 03:26

I used to smirk at folks using walking poles out on the Scottish hills. That was until the knees got bad. Poles make the difference between walking or not walking.
Started off with one pole until the psychological resistance broke down to the thought of being another one of those geeks...then I started using two.
I know mountain guides in Skye that use sticks. These guys are guiding in the Cullin's on an almost daily basis...knee trouble dictates the need for walking poles as far as they're concerned.
Take the point about squats to strengthen the knees Pengun, I never even thought of that...duh! I used to have a set of squatting racks but gave them away a while back... Need to start light squats to see if it helps.

I've led a pretty physical life and I noticed at about 50 or so that I was not as strong as I was. I started lifting weights at 54 and have not looked back.

You lose muscle as you get past 50, about a pound a year. You can keep it and build more but you have to work at it. I have to be strong and resilient enough to crash my motorcycle, 400+ lbs of KLR. You fall down a lot up the mountain, or at least I do.

Squatting and deadlifting my weight, a bunch of times, makes the knees pretty bulletproof. With the quads from squats and calves that see double my weight the mountains are kinda fun. You walk with the normal aerobic endurance muscle and hop over logs, power up short slopes with anaerobic stuff you built. When you can do a bunch of chins grabbing rock, wood whatever is just easy and climbing a joy.

I will never stop lifting weights.

My stepfather is 93 and he does many reps with a pair of 10 lb dumbbells every day. He kinda blows my mind.

kev curry

12-Mar-2010, 04:05

I know about being inspired by old boys, an ex partners late uncle ran his last London (full) marathon in just over 7 hours, he was 89! He was an old professor of Aeronautics, he lived a very simple life, understood good nutrition and ran all his days! When he died I inherited a bunch of the never worn freebie t-shirts he'd been given for running marathons all over the place.

You've got me going about them squats and dead-lifts! That's one I owe you!

rdenney

12-Mar-2010, 06:01

Squatting and deadlifting my weight, a bunch of times, makes the knees pretty bulletproof.

Or it kills them.

Beware of extrapolating your personal experience to everyone. It just doesn't work that way. I raced bikes in college (30-odd years ago) and since that time have been involved in a range of endurance sports, working my way up to an Ironman Triathlon about 10 years ago. I have performed so many squats, deadlifts, and leg-presses that I can't even count them, and even now in a relatively unfit state my legs are pretty strong. But my knees are a constant source of trouble, and doing squats now really tears them up. Squats, done right, are intense, and for many right at the limit of their strength in 10 or 12-rep sets. One works up to that. At one time I did sets every day of one-legged squats, but my knees still suffered.

I know a woman who is consistently in the top two or three in the world in her age group in triathlon, and she is now in her late 70's. She reports never being sick and a range of other physical miracles. Does the triathlon keep her that way, or does her good genetics keep her that way, and by the way also make it easy for her to be a world-class triathlete? The answer is not obvious. Your 93-year-old father is evidence of good genes running around in there somewhere, I would think. Lots of healthy and fit people die or suffer debilitating illness much younger for reasons unrelated to their diet and exercise program.

The underlying idea implicit in these stories from the most fit (or experienced) among us is that they represent the standard of fitness below which people ought not to go for a hike. When stated that way, I don't know many who will find that statement easy to defend. But it is a common attitude among those who work hard to become very fit or who have worked long years to gain that experience.

Rick "wondering how self-sufficient some of these woodcrafty types would feel in downtown Baltimore where I work" Denney

walter23

12-Mar-2010, 10:02

The underlying idea implicit in these stories from the most fit (or experienced) among us is that they represent the standard of fitness below which people ought not to go for a hike. When stated that way, I don't know many who will find that statement easy to defend. But it is a common attitude among those who work hard to become very fit or who have worked long years to gain that experience.

Yeah, this is something I'm seeing more and more of. I already mentioned the guy at my office who joined a club but didn't actually go hiking yet, just bought a ton of stuff. When I lived in Calgary, I went on a planned hike in a city park with some outdoor club (a friend was a member) and I actually met a pair of fairly fit joggers who said they were "working their way up to going on a mountain hike". Here I am a low-moderate shape guy who can't jog further than two blocks and never uses the gym and I just go out to the mountains whenever I can... yet these guys thought they had to become olympic athletes just to hit any old trail out in the parks, because they were hanging out with all these narcissistic amateur athletes. Weird trends in our culture right now.

Rick "wondering how self-sufficient some of these woodcrafty types would feel in downtown Baltimore where I work" Denney

Haha. I loved going to downtown Baltimore McDonalds for breakfast when I was there for a conference a couple of years ago. I hate McDonalds, but the atmosphere there was just way too interesting to resist.

Drew Wiley

12-Mar-2010, 11:14

I love those spring-loaded walking poles, especially on steep downhill grades with a
heavy pack. Started using them about 20yrs ago and my knees feel better now than then! At my age I try to get out on the hills with the pack and the 8x10 at least once a week to stay in shape. Can't stand the thought of a gym - reminds me of rats in
smelly cages on treadmills. Fortunately there are plenty of hills even within walking
distance of my house, though during these heavy spring rains some of them are very muddy, so I get tempted just to follow the drier ridge trails. As summer approaches I try to work outmmore and more to get ready for the high Sierra. Don't have any trouble with steep off-trail grades at all, but just can't cover the same distance in a day that I once could! Oh well, having plenty of fun anyway. Those poles are also
excellent devices for traction, and I can generally leave the ice axe behind.

kev curry

12-Mar-2010, 12:03

Same here with the spring loaded poles.
Thats encouraging that your knees have improved rather than degenerated!
Maybe I should rethink backpacking the 10x8... I've rethought... nah, no chance!

tgtaylor

12-Mar-2010, 12:06

Drew Wiley

12-Mar-2010, 13:55

Don't see what running on flat ground has to do with carrying a pack over hills. When
I was a kid I could run pretty good, at least for someone from a cow town, and would run ten miles a day cross-country during school hours - but it was after school or on the weekends that the real exercise began, typically on sixty-degree canyon walls. I sometimes got put in races against world class runners from that age group (like 4min
flat milers) and got utterly skunked, but I could skunk them in the mtns - it's a whole different thing, except maybe cardio in general. My feet are so bad I probably can't run
at all any more - was born that way and suffered horrible pain for decades, but it didn't keep me out of the hills. In fact next wk I have another pair of custom hiking
boots coming in that cost me nearly a grand, but this allows me a reasonable amount of comfort with heavy packs. Get me down to sixty pound pack and I can usually outpace most young backpackers. Not bragging; it's just a different kind of training, which gets more and more important as one gets older and less limber. Hell, just carrying an 8x10 around sure beats golf or whatever it is people my age think they're supposed to be doing! Just wish I could be like Norman Clyde, who still carried an 80+ lb packs in the Sierras when he was in his 80's, even if he didn't cover a lot of distance in a day. Maybe LF photog just makes one stubborn and ornery, which can't
be a bad thing if it makes you forget all the stereotypes about aging.

PenGun

12-Mar-2010, 14:49

Or it kills them.

Beware of extrapolating your personal experience to everyone. It just doesn't work that way. I raced bikes in college (30-odd years ago) and since that time have been involved in a range of endurance sports, working my way up to an Ironman Triathlon about 10 years ago. I have performed so many squats, deadlifts, and leg-presses that I can't even count them, and even now in a relatively unfit state my legs are pretty strong. But my knees are a constant source of trouble, and doing squats now really tears them up. Squats, done right, are intense, and for many right at the limit of their strength in 10 or 12-rep sets. One works up to that. At one time I did sets every day of one-legged squats, but my knees still suffered.

That is probably where you blew your knees up. Anyone who does not understand recovery should probably stay away from weights.

I know a woman who is consistently in the top two or three in the world in her age group in triathlon, and she is now in her late 70's. She reports never being sick and a range of other physical miracles. Does the triathlon keep her that way, or does her good genetics keep her that way, and by the way also make it easy for her to be a world-class triathlete? The answer is not obvious. Your 93-year-old father is evidence of good genes running around in there somewhere, I would think. Lots of healthy and fit people die or suffer debilitating illness much younger for reasons unrelated to their diet and exercise program.

The underlying idea implicit in these stories from the most fit (or experienced) among us is that they represent the standard of fitness below which people ought not to go for a hike. When stated that way, I don't know many who will find that statement easy to defend. But it is a common attitude among those who work hard to become very fit or who have worked long years to gain that experience.

Rick "wondering how self-sufficient some of these woodcrafty types would feel in downtown Baltimore where I work" Denney

I was at one time an officer of Satan's Choice. Downtown Baltimore I would not like but would probably survive.

It's a good idea to work your body especially as you age. I would be a weak old man without my weights.

I think you are overstating the case. Walking is essential if you want to hike. The big miles are where the hiking power comes from. I like the extra strength weights allow me to have but they do not substitute for the slow twitch endurance muscle.

My whole point was that you can strengthen your knees and indeed any part of your body with exercise. You should be aware of the possible problems, overexercising without recovery time is a big one and go for it. You only need a bench, some dumbbells and a bar for chins. I have never had a gym membership.

http://exrx.net/

An excellent place to start.

Jack Dahlgren

12-Mar-2010, 15:00

I was at one time an officer of Satan's Choice.

Satan's choice... Isn't that a kind of cat food?

PenGun

12-Mar-2010, 15:06

Satan's choice... Isn't that a kind of cat food?

It may by now. The Choice lost to the Angels and is no more. Well since the 70s really.

PenGun

12-Mar-2010, 20:32

One of the best, if not the best, exercise for the knees is cycling.

A good rule of thumb that I found to determine fitness for serious backcountry travel is whether or not you can cover 1.5 miles in 12 minutes on level terrain. That's an 8-minute mile pace for 1.5 miles.

No not really. As with all machines your stress is confined to a very small range. You do not strengthen stabilizer muscles and supportive tissue at all. It is probably dangerous to rely on biking for knee conditioning.

It is very useful for many other things though. Heavy cardio with almost no impact among others.

tgtaylor

13-Mar-2010, 09:50

No not really. As with all machines your stress is confined to a very small range. You do not strengthen stabilizer muscles and supportive tissue at all. It is probably dangerous to rely on biking for knee conditioning.

It is very useful for many other things though. Heavy cardio with almost no impact among others.

Well, that was my understanding after speaking with several individuals who had knee problems. Here is what I found by googling knee problems and cycling:

"In comparison with other exercises cycling is a relatively ‘knee friendly’ activity that can help to improve knee joint mobility and stability. Cycling is frequently used as a rehabilitation exercise modality after knee injury or surgery as well as part of the management of chronic degenerative conditions such as osteoarthritis. The bicycle has a number of features that make it a particularly good tool for knee rehabilitation:

http://www.cartilagehealth.com/cycling.html#

Greg Miller

14-Mar-2010, 08:53

Some of us have surgically repaired knees (my case), or arthritis, or are prone to tendon problems. Strength training can certainly help in some cases, but by no means overcomes these issues for many of us. People can snicker at me if they want, but using hiking poles when carrying a heavy load is almost a necessity, and it would actually stupid for me not to use them. And anyone who has used them for a full day of carrying heavy loads, regardless of how strong they are, understands how much stress they take off of the leg joints. They are also great for balance when crossing streams and rivers, and also reduce the likelihood of swollen hands or numb arms that many people get when hiking distances with a pack.

rdenney

14-Mar-2010, 16:33

I think you are overstating the case. Walking is essential if you want to hike. The big miles are where the hiking power comes from. I like the extra strength weights allow me to have but they do not substitute for the slow twitch endurance muscle.

My whole point was that you can strengthen your knees and indeed any part of your body with exercise. You should be aware of the possible problems, overexercising without recovery time is a big one and go for it. You only need a bench, some dumbbells and a bar for chins. I have never had a gym membership.

Telling me how I blew out my knees on the basis of a one-paragraph summary of 35 years of fitness activity is an example of my point. The knowledge you have gained to find what works for you does not imply a standard for everyone else to follow, or even constitute expertise on the topic.

Rick "wondering what the difference is between walking and hiking" Denney

PenGun

14-Mar-2010, 16:45

Telling me how I blew out my knees on the basis of a one-paragraph summary of 35 years of fitness activity is an example of my point. The knowledge you have gained to find what works for you does not imply a standard for everyone else to follow, or even constitute expertise on the topic.

Rick "wondering what the difference is between walking and hiking" Denney

If you did squats every day without recovery time then it's very likely that contributed to any problem you may have with your knees.

Ask your doctor.

Walking is 'going somewhere'. Hiking is 'going nowhere then coming back'.

rdenney

15-Mar-2010, 07:20

If you did squats every day without recovery time then it's very likely that contributed to any problem you may have with your knees.

Ask your doctor.

Walking is 'going somewhere'. Hiking is 'going nowhere then coming back'.

Sheesh. That depends on how strong one is.

And sheesh again. Every time you climb a step, you are doing part of a one-legged squat. If you take two steps at a time, you are doing most of a one-legged squat. If you do it slowly, you are doing it with good squat form. I climb stairs every day. Should I not be?

Quit being my doctor--you don't know enough about me. That's my point.

Rick "who almost always ends up where he started whether 'walking' or 'hiking'" Denney

gevalia

15-Mar-2010, 14:22

Walking is 'going somewhere'. Hiking is 'going nowhere then coming back'.

I like this quote and as someone that hikes quite a bit, I will steal it and use it as my own.

PenGun

15-Mar-2010, 16:01

Sheesh. That depends on how strong one is.

And sheesh again. Every time you climb a step, you are doing part of a one-legged squat. If you take two steps at a time, you are doing most of a one-legged squat. If you do it slowly, you are doing it with good squat form. I climb stairs every day. Should I not be?

Quit being my doctor--you don't know enough about me. That's my point.

Rick "who almost always ends up where he started whether 'walking' or 'hiking'" Denney

It has nothing to do with how strong you are. It has to do with stress and recovery. If there is no recovery stuff deteriorates.

If you are just walking then the stress is quite minimal and the human body is designed to cover big miles. You have the result of a lifetime of physical stess in your everyday body.

If you are purposely stressing your body in order to strengthen it you need to let the part you carefully overstressed have time to repair and grow new muscle, bone and connective tissue. If you do not allow repair time from overstress there will be damage.

Your doctor will confirm what I have said. I figure you can argue with him.

Jim Ewins

15-Mar-2010, 21:18

rdenney

16-Mar-2010, 07:55

Your doctor will confirm what I have said. I figure you can argue with him.

Let me try again: I didn't provide you with enough description for you to determine whether I was or was not causing an overuse injury by doing squats every day. You think that is enough information, but only because of your mental image of squats in relation to your own fitness and knowledge.

I did, however, outline a long history of endurance sports and training activities.

I did not outline for you all the discussions I have had with professional trainers and doctors about a wide range of issues. You are assuming blindly that I have not had all those discussions many times. I have not engaged the topic of recovery with you at all, because that is not the point.

My thesis is that people who are describing their own fitness program or experience as the implied standard for who is qualified to hike in remote areas (with our without cairns) are really just bragging about their program or experience (or toughness). If people actually took those implied standards to heart, they would not achieve anything--you have to push through the periods when you don't meet standards in order to attain them, which means taking risks.

You keep reinforcing my point by extrapolating what works for you, or what you read in a book and applied to your own program, or that even you heard from your doctor, and making it TRVTH for everyone else. Recovery is for intense exercise taken to the limit. World-class runners, including those who run successfully into old age, run every day. They don't run fast every day, but their slow days may be fast to you or me. Yet they never stop running. What makes it work for them? Good genes, for one thing, and good biometrics for another. Guys who train in the gym at a high level, even into old age, don't take every other day off. When I worked out in gyms, the same guys were in there every day I was in there. They may work light on legs today and heavy tomorrow, but I think you'll find they take at most one day a week off. Do you think Lance Armstrong only rides every other day to allow his legs to recover? Do you think he avoids sprints on a given ride because it's an easy day? He may not focus on sprints or do hill repeats every day, but 13 days out of every fortnight he's on the bike. When he's fit, his poke-along recovery days would kill many of us. There are ways to do squats that are intense and require recovery, and there are ways to do them that are not and don't. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when it becomes the prescription for everyone else.

To bring the point back to topic explicitly, just because many don't need cairns doesn't mean they aren't useful to some. And those who dismiss the arguments made by those who appreciate the cairns as reflecting inadequate experience should remember that the experience they have was never as good as it is now, and may not even now be as good as they think it is.

Rick "Edward Abbey was lucky to survive some his his mistakes" Denney

Vaughn

16-Mar-2010, 10:09

Well, that was my understanding after speaking with several individuals who had knee problems. Here is what I found by googling knee problems and cycling:

"In comparison with other exercises cycling is a relatively ‘knee friendly’ activity that can help to improve knee joint mobility and stability. Cycling is frequently used as a rehabilitation exercise modality after knee injury or surgery as well as part of the management of chronic degenerative conditions such as osteoarthritis. The bicycle has a number of features that make it a particularly good tool for knee rehabilitation:

http://www.cartilagehealth.com/cycling.html#

After three knee surgeries (30 yrs of basketball, 10 yrs of wilderness trailwork, tree planting, etc), when my knees start to hurt, it means I have not been spending enough time on the bicycle.

Cairns -- I use to tear down a lot of them when I was a wilderness ranger. And those I left I tended to get reduced in size. After all, it the trail follows a ridgetop, one does not need cairns to know where the ridge top is. And if a set of cairns lead off the trail to some natural feature, I removed those.

I wasn't too crazy about trail signs, either. We put them up at the beginning of the trail and at trail junctions only -- with no mileage on them. If you want to know the name of the creek you are at, figure it out by using the topo map!

Jack Dahlgren

16-Mar-2010, 10:37

Rick "Edward Abbey was lucky to survive some his his mistakes" Denney

I think it was Nietzsche who said "That which does not kill me only makes me cockier".

rdenney

16-Mar-2010, 11:00

After three knee surgeries (30 yrs of basketball, 10 yrs of wilderness trailwork, tree planting, etc), when my knees start to hurt, it means I have not been spending enough time on the bicycle.

Make sure that when you ride the bike to improve the muscles supporting the knee that you keep your cadence high. The higher the better, within the limits of your coordination, of course. A higher cadence in a lower gear will reduce the force applied on each stroke, minimizing any risk to the joint.

Rick "who NEEDS to get back on the bike" Denney

Vaughn

16-Mar-2010, 11:09

I bike toured with a 4x5 in NZ way back when. Started to have real knee pain about halfway through. I had about 300 pounds on the bike (me and gear). Took a long break (more walking/hiking than biking), lowered my seat about 1/2 inch and really upped my cadence -- all that helped a lot.

Lower gears are my friend!

Vaughn

walter23

16-Mar-2010, 11:43

As a hiker, I appreciated cairns as denoting the path. I guess I'd react poorly seeing some jerk who has no ownership in the area kick over something that isn't theirs. Of course there seem to be no shortage of folks who regard the property of others as theirs - as they know better how it should be used.

First, I'm not talking about hiking markers when I talk about deconstruction (afterall, these serve a purpose); I'm talking along beaches, which is where I usually encounter driftwood and stone constructions.

To claim anyone has ownership over these is ridiculous. They are constructed out of scattered debris on a public beach, and returning them to that state is neither good nor bad; it just is. I'm arguing this only because sometimes (well, okay, only once) I have actually been confronted by crazies while taking apart a driftwood pile on a beach ("DID YOU BUILD THAT, YOU JERK?"). It's a totally baffling reaction to me - it's a public beach and there are no rules about these things and nobody can reasonably expect them to last forever - so I'm taking the opportunity here to argue vicariously with them.

Vaughn

16-Mar-2010, 13:28

Walter -- those can be very obnoxious. I look at them as eco-groovy grafitti. Nice that they are all natural, but still can be an eyesore.

Vaughn

PenGun

16-Mar-2010, 16:18

Let me try again: I didn't provide you with enough description for you to determine whether I was or was not causing an overuse injury by doing squats every day. You think that is enough information, but only because of your mental image of squats in relation to your own fitness and knowledge.

I did, however, outline a long history of endurance sports and training activities.

I did not outline for you all the discussions I have had with professional trainers and doctors about a wide range of issues. You are assuming blindly that I have not had all those discussions many times. I have not engaged the topic of recovery with you at all, because that is not the point.

My thesis is that people who are describing their own fitness program or experience as the implied standard for who is qualified to hike in remote areas (with our without cairns) are really just bragging about their program or experience (or toughness). If people actually took those implied standards to heart, they would not achieve anything--you have to push through the periods when you don't meet standards in order to attain them, which means taking risks.

You keep reinforcing my point by extrapolating what works for you, or what you read in a book and applied to your own program, or that even you heard from your doctor, and making it TRVTH for everyone else. Recovery is for intense exercise taken to the limit. World-class runners, including those who run successfully into old age, run every day. They don't run fast every day, but their slow days may be fast to you or me. Yet they never stop running. What makes it work for them? Good genes, for one thing, and good biometrics for another. Guys who train in the gym at a high level, even into old age, don't take every other day off. When I worked out in gyms, the same guys were in there every day I was in there. They may work light on legs today and heavy tomorrow, but I think you'll find they take at most one day a week off. Do you think Lance Armstrong only rides every other day to allow his legs to recover? Do you think he avoids sprints on a given ride because it's an easy day? He may not focus on sprints or do hill repeats every day, but 13 days out of every fortnight he's on the bike. When he's fit, his poke-along recovery days would kill many of us. There are ways to do squats that are intense and require recovery, and there are ways to do them that are not and don't. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when it becomes the prescription for everyone else.

To bring the point back to topic explicitly, just because many don't need cairns doesn't mean they aren't useful to some. And those who dismiss the arguments made by those who appreciate the cairns as reflecting inadequate experience should remember that the experience they have was never as good as it is now, and may not even now be as good as they think it is.

Rick "Edward Abbey was lucky to survive some his his mistakes" Denney

http://exrx.net/

I just did my legs etc. Squats, deadlifts, calves raises and reverse calf raises.. I lifted a total of about 13000 lbs. I do this about every 5 days. It took me a while to get to this level and as I am getting old I just maintain at this level.

All the parts that I used to do that are considerably stronger, and more importantly, much more resilient than if I had just sat on my ass.

From what you have said you don't seem to understand the difference between aerobic/endurance and anaerobic/strength muscles and their conditioning.

rdenney

17-Mar-2010, 19:56

From what you have said you don't seem to understand the difference between aerobic/endurance and anaerobic/strength muscles and their conditioning.

I dub thee the extrapolation master!

Some people can't climb one flight of stairs without an anaerobic burn. For them, stair climbing is strength training. Some can't do 10 squats, or 2 one-legged squats. It's strength training for them, too. But some people are strong enough to do dozens of squats, or climb stair two at a time for 20 or 40 flights, without getting out of breath and without that anaerobic burn. For them, those same exercises are endurance training, and maybe even fully aerobic. As I said about 100 posts ago, it depends on how strong you are. For most fit and strong people, squats have to be done with extra weights to be real strength training.

Rick "who knows the difference between strength training and endurance training, and who has done plenty of both, but whose point is not based on that knowledge" Denney

PenGun

17-Mar-2010, 20:16

I dub thee the extrapolation master!

Some people can't climb one flight of stairs without an anaerobic burn. For them, stair climbing is strength training. Some can't do 10 squats, or 2 one-legged squats. It's strength training for them, too. But some people are strong enough to do dozens of squats, or climb stair two at a time for 20 or 40 flights, without getting out of breath and without that anaerobic burn. For them, those same exercises are endurance training, and maybe even fully aerobic. As I said about 100 posts ago, it depends on how strong you are. For most fit and strong people, squats have to be done with extra weights to be real strength training.

Rick "who knows the difference between strength training and endurance training, and who has done plenty of both, but whose point is not based on that knowledge" Denney

http://exrx.net