Stacking rocks - why?

[zeehag]

we are not alone.
stacking rocks is an inobtrusive way of reminding each other of this.
can be important.

[Diesel Bill]

I have a big pile of rocks in the yard that slowly grew as I cleaned up the yard . Now I know what to do with them. Wonder how high I can get them before they fall over.

[PaulinOz]

This mob seemed to be a bit obsessive about their stone stacking.

[SV Bacchus]

Originally Posted by Lunita

These folks had to travel here by boat and chose this scenic remote area to explore, but need to change it to look more like the urban parks they are used to?

I hate to say this to somebody I don't know, and please don't be offended, but I think you need to go see somebody. Like, uh, some help for your condition.

[belizesailor]

If you think of carins as a form of graffitti then I think it is a much less visiually intrusive form than spray can graffitti. I recently participated in a trail clean up on Volcan Barú in Panama. Lots of really annoying spray can graffitti. Rearranging natural elements is much less obtrusive to me anyway.

And people had to haul spray cans with them to altitude to desecrate this beautiful area. For this I think they should be fined heavily...stacking a few rocks...meh.

[markpierce]

Not uncommon to see stacked stones on unworn trails in the high country above timberline where blazes on trees are not possible.

[deblen]

Inukshuk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuksuk

These markers were placed across the high arctic by the Inuit long ago for various reasons given in the above article.
Over the last 40 yrs or so,small inukshuks have been plastered all over Canada(& probably other countries also) by everyone & their dog- but doubtfully by the Inuit people .

I can appreciate the OP's annoyance @ finding not just one,but several,on a remote beach.
They are not real inukshuks & have no real meaning in that location.
They are thousands of miles from Inuit territory.
They are a form of grafitti I suppose,but being just an organized pile of beach rocks,are harmless to all but the visual senses.
Personally,I have found so many of them in any place where people congregate outdoors that I hardly notice them anymore.

Sort of like thousands of people leaving burnt out campfire wood all over the worlds tropical sand beaches......harmless natural local wood but kind of messy looking
Len

[Lepke]

Early surveys used rock stacks for markers and bearing points. Some are still on charts in remote areas. When enough natural, long lasting objects don't exist, surveyors stack rocks at useful points and fix their positions to existing nav objects. Sometimes the rocks are painted.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Far better cairns than beach condos or beach resorts!

[JPA Cate]

lunita has actually touched on something kind of interesting. I've seen lots of rocks along hiking trails, and some stacks have meanings, above and beyond being a trailmarker.

However, during the folk music festival in Tasmania, there was a gal with a box of different shapes and types of Tasmanian rocks, and she was inviting people to stack them. Some of this rock were largish flat rocks. I watched a lot of kids build rock stacks alone, then an adult man came along, and he built a stack of balancing rocks, a little like an upside down mobile. His stack was all about the balancing properties of the different stones. It was not only creative, but sort of exciting, and possibly meditative, as mentioned above.

I guess how you react to such an activity has a lot to do with your world view and your tolerance levels, and this will always vary, both within an individual and across many individuals.

Ann

[thinwater]

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.

I think the more likely case is they were built by bored folks on the beach... perhaps someone's iphone died...

Lunita, I have wondered the same thing. Although I guess it's better than carving your name into a tree or something more destructive.

In Bonaire, where we do a lot of shore diving, cairns are often used as marker points for safe entry and exit.

This. Of course, we all know about cairns. Obviously. But this sounds more like boredom.

[Cormorant]

This guy -- Michael Grab -- takes rock balancing to the level of art:
Gravity Glue | Stone Balance by Michael Grab

[nwdiver]

It's because they can........suck it up, your pristine area has been logged, several times.......

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Lunita

We are anchored in a beautiful Cove in Desolation Sound on coastal British Columbia. Soaring mountains, forested islets and dead calm and quiet. What a fantastic piece of nature, except that the rocky shoreline is interrupted by stacked stone pillars. Why do some people feel the urge to leave this graffiti behind? I am not here to see their juvenile art projects. Does anyone have a reasoning for this wierd behaviour that will help me understand it? These folks had to travel here by boat and chose this scenic remote area to explore, but need to change it to look more like the urban parks they are used to?
Sad and confused.

Pretty simple really.

If you were to delete the word "weird" from the emphasised sentence above, the the principle reason then is "it is part of being human; it is what humans do". Sometimes one human doesn't like what another human does. This is also a condition of being human.

However if you wish to keep the word "weird" in the sentence, then you have to accept that there are different things that annoy us. For instance, I might have hiked (or kayaked) into the same "wilderness" and thought seeing a 42' boat is an offensive sight. I didn't walk on my own two feet carrying everything I need just to see floating modern example technology complete with all the comforts of an urban house in this location.

Given the reach and effect of people all around world, there is a argument for declaring some areas to be kept as pristine as possible. Take only photographs and leave only footprints or in the boating world, leave a clean wake.

[brazenarticle]

Originally Posted by Fiveslide

I work in an Army Corp of Engineers campground. Apparently, painting rocks is now a thing. Painted rocks are everywhere and that is true graffiti. I read an article a while back about a young woman getting in serious trouble for painting large rock formations and in a national park. They just paint little rocks here, nobody has been arrested for it.

When I was in US Army basic training I often wondered the same thing - why were painted rocks a thing? No rock in view of any officer was safe from a through coating of white paint.