Stacking rocks - why?

[Peregrine1983]

Suggesting that this person seek professional help is pretty offensive.

I think what the OP is really getting at here is that it seems hard to find places that are truly "wild" these days. I feel ya...

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Peregrine1983

Suggesting that this person seek professional help is pretty offensive.

I think what the OP is really getting at here is that it seems hard to find places that are truly "wild" these days. I feel ya...

That's 'cause there ain't any.

Thankfully there are still places where human occupation is now prohibited and the remnants of human visitors are minor but there isn't any truly "wild" places.

Maybe this is part of the attraction by some to deep ocean voyaging, the Southern Ocean for instance.

[Pelagic]

Here in the Philippines, we stack coconuts...... Much more challenging!

[Benz]

Where I come from, cairns are useful for marking hard-to-see trails and forks in the same. What's annoying is when there's so many cairns that there might as well not be any, because they tell you nothing. One of the purposes of the cairns is to lessen impact: if everyone uses one trail, they're not trampling everywhere else. But a lot of people want to blaze and cairn their own trail, either unable to find the usual one, or thinking they have a better way.
I've knocked down hundreds of superfluous cairns, where they were by a path so obvious it was silly to have them, or when they were in a rock gully where there was no possible way to get lost. Bowling for cairns in a steep gully is actually a pleasant way to pass the time on a long descent from a climb.
I approve of cairns for navaids, provided (again) that there's not so many that it tells you nothing. I'd rather not see them in the places the OP describes, but that's a minor annoyance, far less than finding styrofoam or water bottles.

[SV Siren]

Sometimes it is a tradition that started sometime ago with tourists.

On Mackinac Island between the upper and lower peninsula's of Michigan you will find literally thousands of them, they are pretty cool to see, and the more creative ones have been created out in the water near the shoreline. A bike ride around the outer perimeter of the island is a must do if you ever visit.

The waves and the weather destroy them from time to time, but it is a way to leave your mark without permanently destroying the shoreline..

[IMG]Untitled by Scott Ehrich, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Peregrine1983]

Originally Posted by Wotname

That's 'cause there ain't any.

Thankfully there are still places where human occupation is now prohibited and the remnants of human visitors are minor but there isn't any truly "wild" places.

Maybe this is part of the attraction by some to deep ocean voyaging, the Southern Ocean for instance.

Absolutely. That's what a cruising boat represents - a ticket to go where 99% of others haven't been.

Ironically the "wildest" place I've ever been on land was north of Cairns (!!!) way up on Cape York.

[David M]

In Boy Scouts we learned that stacked rocks along a trail meant different things.

[Halien]

Lunita's experience of Desolation Sound was diminished by someone else's experience there. Boo Hoo. The entitlement just oozes from every word in the original post. Cairns are pretty common, but when you cruise with kids, so are plain old stacks of rocks. My kids all made them: on beaches, riverbanks, and mountaintops. Everyone else's kids probably did too, and when I see a pile of rocks in an interesting place that's not easy to get to, my first reaction isn't to complain about the "graffiti". I can see complaining about actual damage to the area, or litter, or something else destructive, but a pile of rocks means that someone was there, enjoying the area in a way that pleased them. That's the point, right? That it displeases Lunita doesn't necessarily mean they need to "see someone", but it does make them seem like someone I wouldn't care to know.

[seasick]

I sailed into Princess Louisa Inlet a few weeks ago and walked over to Chatter Box Falls. I was surprised by the number of Cairns all about. My first thought was that they were there as some byproduct of geo-caching etc. I too thought they were a bit off putting but not enough to bother with toppling them.

To say they are graffiti is actually pretty spot on. They don't proclaim specifics like fool's names and fool's faces but they do state for near eternity that a human proceeded me. On a remote and vague trail a cairn is a Godsend, reassuring me that my sense of direction is shared by another but in a place where getting lost is unlikely, cairns seem just like graffiti to me.

[Shrew]

Originally Posted by Peregrine1983

Wait.... People seem to be jumping to the conclusion here that the cairns Lunita is seeing are ancient and should be appreciated as some sort of archeological artifact. I doubt that.

Elephants are grey, however all things grey are NOT necessarily elephants.

Cairns have a variety of uses and have been built since pre-historic times. That does not mean that all cairns are prehistoric. We've eaten meat since pre-historic times too, that doesn't mean the cheeseburger I'm eating right now is pre-historic either.

[tstano]

Originally Posted by Shrew

Elephants are grey, however all things grey are NOT necessarily elephants.

Cairns have a variety of uses and have been built since pre-historic times. That does not mean that all cairns are prehistoric. We've eaten meat since pre-historic times too, that doesn't mean the cheeseburger I'm eating right now is pre-historic either.

And at some point I think we all loose our rocks.

All U Get

[Tingum]

The cairns are an art form. Does the op prefer all the plastic flotsam that litters the beaches? What about the amazing bouy trees through the Caribbean? Ever seen the Allens-Pensacola yacht club in Abaco? Sounds like he needs a sense of humor.

[Tellie]

Somewhat unrelated, I just came back from Europe,..again, Graffiti is far more accepted there and is casually allowed. I don't get it, gorgeous architectural buildings, walls, etc., that have stood for hundreds of years are covered in this foolishness everywhere you go and in my opinion shows so much lack of respect and appreciation for ones own history. While stone stacking is not the same and nature will take it's course with these things I kinda understand the OPs attitude. You do want to get away from, no matter how hard it is these days, simplistic statements from man.

[LakeSuperior]

I want the illusion of being in the wild place. Yes I realize I'm not the first set of footprints. However, looking at a scenic vista that may not have changed since La Salle a cairn in the foreground is graffiti.

The cairns have irritated me for years and I'm glad I'm not the only one. How can a cairn be "art" ? Is art something that takes no skill to create and is built in 5 minutes?

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

I want the illusion of being in the wild place. Yes I realize I'm not the first set of footprints. However, looking at a scenic vista that may not have changed since La Salle a cairn in the foreground is graffiti.

The cairns have irritated me for years and I'm glad I'm not the only one. How can a cairn be "art" ? Is art something that takes no skill to create and is built in 5 minutes?

Ever seen a Picasso? I don't get it either. But then I'm more of the emperors new clothes mentality.