Don't forget all the little Gnome gardens. I'm sure plenty think they're cute, but they're just another form of tagging to my eyes. I don't get it... these people bring their sharpies with them everywhere.
I posted that article to this years class page on FB told them they made the news locally..
My love for life is quit simple .i get uo in the moring and then i go to bed at night. What I do inbween is to occupy my time. Cary Grant
NoDoz
nobo 2018 March 10th - October 19th
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I'm just one too many mornings and 1,000 miles behind
I think that would qualify as graffiti on the white blazes
I was referring to these: but there's also the stacked rocks (I call 'em hoodoos) at White Rocks on the LT/AT and other places. I like the old Long Trail admonition to "take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints"
it appears rdljr took the warning that his post didn't have enough characters to heart
Ramdino too talked about this phenomenon in one of his videos. My own theory is that trail trashing (graffiti, genome villages, trail markers, etc.) exploded with AT YouTubers as many take selfies next to those tree trial markers and post them on YouTube. I don't know if that's a word, but I call this "Youtubization" as in "the youtubization of the Appalachian Trail".
The self-centered, the self-ordained, and the otherwise self-obsessed. It's not YouTube it's Instagram & SnapChat.
I knock down all piles of rocks except where cairns are needed above tree line.
Be Prepared
For a couple of bucks, get a weird haircut and waste your life away Bryan Adams....
Hammock hangs are where you go into the woods to meet men you've only known on the internet so you can sit around a campfire to swap sewing tips and recipes. - sargevining on HF
I figured those piled rocks were meant to be there for one reason or another, at the least put out for show by people who maintain the trails. I didn't realize it was a thing to just do this on your own. I guess the main reason I thought that is because they have what they call a "rock garden" on part of the Metacomet Trail (New England Trail) in CT, they even mention it in the CT Walk Book, put out by the CT Forest & Park Association. They had some very unique stackings of rocks and I thought it looked like some really neat art. I know that was meant to be there but apparently it's frowned upon elsewhere. I was a little disappointed to see it all knocked over the last time I went through, I figured it was just some people that don't care out in the woods during the pandemic with nothing to do. I would help knock these over but I wouldn't want to where they are meant to be there.
I do recall a lot of these stackings on my thru hike in VT and I just figured they were meant to be like the "rock garden". I appreciate the art of some of it but then sometimes it's just a pile of rocks - and if they aren't meant to be there it's another story all together.
NoDoz
nobo 2018 March 10th - October 19th
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I'm just one too many mornings and 1,000 miles behind
I hate having to clean stuff up like that too rdljr!
"Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun
Sleepin by the river just like he usually done
Call for his whisky
He can call for his tea
Call all he wanta but he can't call me..."
Robert Hunter & Ron McKernan
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Last edited by 4eyedbuzzard; 06-20-2021 at 20:56.
"That's the thing about possum innards - they's just as good the second day." - Jed Clampett
Here is one article from the Smithsonian Magazine asking people not to stack rocks. There are many others online talking about the deleterious effects to the micro-environment. I have seen signs at several NPS units asking people not to stack rocks. I THINK Delaware Water Gap may have been one of them...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...ood-180955880/
Be Prepared
A massive problem?
Not so much.
The tremendous decline of songbird populations along the AT is a massive problem. There are others.
Mileage marker graffiti is more like an an assault on some people’s egos — it makes them feel disrespected.
Better not to participate or encourage so as not to bruise any feelings, but of all the things to stress about, it’s pretty far down the list, IMO.