Stacking Rocks

In case you were wondering. We've seen these "art installations" all over the parks we visit. And while every once in a while one seems slightly charming, the absolute epidemic of stacked rocks all over the place has quickly become a real eyesore.

When we were hiking on our recent trip to the Southwest, we noted this very clear sign that made it apparent: stacked rocks are graffiti. This is especially important in the Southwest, where geoglyphs and other rock installations can be thousands of years old, and indicate real archeological importance. Scrawling all over that with your own clever creations is graffiti, nothing more or less.

Here's a link to the sign:

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Check our our website: http://www.backpackthesierra.com/
Or just read a good mystery novel set in the Sierra; https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Falling-Rocks-Paul-Wagner/dp/0984884963

I cant click on your link, but i think this is what your talking about. Made me think of this i wrote a few years ago

MY HAPPY PLACE [ PM ]
Re: Is it ok to take down rock art?
July 20, 2016 01:53PM Registered: 3 years ago
Posts: 46
OH OH darn it, you got me started. I HATE THESE THINGS. I've always known them as DUcKS, I knock them down everywhere i go. When i look across the landscape and i see these things sticking up out of the ground, its like Graffiti me. I know there is a purpose for these in certain areas where they greatly help to define a trail, and if i determine they are there for that purpose then i do leave them, but generally they are there because someone feels like they need to leave their own mark on the land. Its littering as far as im concerned. Imagine if someone carved an arrow in a tree to point out a direction of travel and then everyone that came along took their turn with the other trees in the area and carved their own arrow or name or sign, LOVELY RIGHT. Last week i knocked over at least 5 of them on 4 mile trail, then the next day a friend of mine went on the same trail and felt it would be funny to send me a photo of him building one back up on the same trail. Im still pissed, the only reason he did it was to piss me off, but the result is that he left it there, Thats what im talking about, they do this crap as a game and in the end its the landscape that is changed. i know it takes allot less energy for me to knock them down then it did for someone to build it. Hope they got a good workout, I love duck hunting.

See if this link doesn't work better:

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Check our our website: http://www.backpackthesierra.com/
Or just read a good mystery novel set in the Sierra; https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Falling-Rocks-Paul-Wagner/dp/0984884963

I hate seeing them. I have not been to Mirror Lake in long time and was wondering if there are tons of stacks still there.

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parklover
I hate seeing them. I have not been to Mirror Lake in long time and was wondering if there are tons of stacks still there.

We knocked them ALL down last year...

They're back up...

sigh...

Maybe someday...

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chick-on

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parklover
I hate seeing them. I have not been to Mirror Lake in long time and was wondering if there are tons of stacks still there.

We knocked them ALL down last year...

They're back up...

sigh...

Maybe someday...

Darn I hate those things. Next time I go to Yosemite I will need to go knock some down.

Any area frequented by the masses has risk of ducks. Lembert Dome is another popular destination that has its share. El Cap summit usually has a few also. Glen Aulin can be bad. But nothing compared to that spot near Mirror Lake, though.

Conservationists Want You to Stop Building Rock Piles
Cairns have a long history and purpose, one that newer stacks sometimes subvert
By Marissa Fessenden
smithsonian.com
July 13, 2015

The Gorham Mountain trail at Acadia National park winds up through a forested mountain slope before bursting out onto the one of the granite-boulder covered summits for which the park is famous. But once you get up there, following the loop back down would be tricky if it weren’t for rock stacks built by Waldron Bates — they feature a long flat rock supported by two legs and a smaller rock pointing in the direction of the trail. For centuries, humans have been building such markers. But many trail aficionados have one thing to say to people building stone piles in the wilderness: Stop.

For High Country News, Robyn Martin writes that there is an annoying plague of rock stacks balanced carefully atop one another in the West.

These piles aren't true cairns, the official term for deliberately stacked rocks. From middle Gaelic, the word means "mound of stones built as a memorial or landmark." There are plenty of those in Celtic territories, that's for sure, as well as in other cultures; indigenous peoples in the United States often used cairns to cover and bury their dead. Those of us who like to hike through wilderness areas are glad to see the occasional cairn, as long as it's indicating the right way to go at critical junctions in the backcountry.

Pointless cairns have been a problem at Acadia, Aislinn Sarnacki writes for Bangor Daily News. Visitors have knocked down the Bates cairns and even built their own. That’s a problem Darren Belskis, supervisory park ranger, told Sarnacki. “They’re very important,” he says. “If you make your own cairn, it leads people in the wrong direction, and it could get people in trouble. So come out and enjoy the cairns, find them all, but please don’t disturb them.”


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/stacking-rocks-wilderness-no-good-180955880/