4 ms·

Hear hear. The number of 'survival cosplayers' vs actual campers has shifted is a bad way recently. It is illegl to build a structure, bury food, etc on public

Hear hear. The number of 'survival cosplayers' vs actual campers has shifted is a bad way recently. It is illegl to build a structure, bury food, etc on public land. You wanna be a prepper, buy your own damn land. Stop destroying ours. P.s. kick over some carins too.

gk1 7y ago
*Cairns Be careful with that, though. Some times they’re used as trail markers. Last year I was on a trail in the Southwest that had loads of cairns, like every 20-30 feet. Rather than feeling disgust at silly Instagram tourists that must’ve built them, I made a game of kicking over as many as I could. When I returned to the trailhead I saw a sign asking to please not touch the rock stacks because they mark the trail. Oops. That felt awful. On the drive home I made a donation to the park so I could go on living.
- almog 7y ago
  lol, as a general rule, I think that's a good call, below the treeline for sure. The original Steve Roper's guide book for its brainchild — Sierra High Route, opens up by instructing hikers to do just that so it doesn't end up becoming a well worn path. It's probably not a good test case for whether or not it's good for the environment since very few people hike this route. Anyhow, the vast majority of (official) trails in the US are so well marked and maintained compared to any other country I've visited, that cairns are nearly always redundant.
  - brewdad 7y ago
    There aren't a lot of trees in the desert southwest. Those cairns ARE the markers that make it a well-marked trail. Additionally, in an extreme environment like that a single well-worn path is far less impactful to the environment than wandering all over in generally the right direction.
    - almog 7y ago
      That is why I mentioned that the SHR is not a good test case, it's an outlier - very few people hike it every year, there is really no trail other than where it coincides with the JMT highway. In that case, cairns are nothing but impact on the environment, since people will have to make their own way between them anyway. I totally agree that cairns are a good marker when there is an official trail that in parts has no visible trail (usually in boulders/lava/talus fields). btw, which desert of the southwest is in question? That's a LARGE area. If we're talking SoCal for example, the entire 700 first miles of the PCT are desert with trail so well maintained and visible that when I hiked it last year, I walked many nights well into night without having to take my flash light out until it became pitch black.
      - kylebarron 7y ago
        Good to see more thru-hikers on HN! I just thru-hiked in 2019 I could imagine there are trails in southern Utah and northern Arizona that might be heavily cairned
        almog 7y ago
        Oh, hi there, it is good to see other thruhikers here indeed!:) Yes, I can imagine that being the case, I'm actually reading Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, mostly about the times he worked in Archs National Park and it sounds just like that. Fun fact you might share - I stumbled upon Edward Abbey following a quote I saw on a blaze in NorCal (which carried bullet hole, obviously, but it actually what made this quote stand out to me): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5bbY00X4AA_eeu.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5bbY00X4AA_eeu.jpg:large It was misattributed I think, I later found out these were Abbey's words.

gk1 7y ago

*Cairns Be careful with that, though. Some times they’re used as trail markers. Last year I was on a trail in the Southwest that had loads of cairns, like every 20-30 feet. Rather than feeling disgust at silly Instagram tourists that must’ve built them, I made a game of kicking over as many as I could. When I returned to the trailhead I saw a sign asking to please not touch the rock stacks because they mark the trail. Oops. That felt awful. On the drive home I made a donation to the park so I could go on living.

almog 7y ago
lol, as a general rule, I think that's a good call, below the treeline for sure. The original Steve Roper's guide book for its brainchild — Sierra High Route, opens up by instructing hikers to do just that so it doesn't end up becoming a well worn path. It's probably not a good test case for whether or not it's good for the environment since very few people hike this route. Anyhow, the vast majority of (official) trails in the US are so well marked and maintained compared to any other country I've visited, that cairns are nearly always redundant.
- brewdad 7y ago
  There aren't a lot of trees in the desert southwest. Those cairns ARE the markers that make it a well-marked trail. Additionally, in an extreme environment like that a single well-worn path is far less impactful to the environment than wandering all over in generally the right direction.
  - almog 7y ago
    That is why I mentioned that the SHR is not a good test case, it's an outlier - very few people hike it every year, there is really no trail other than where it coincides with the JMT highway. In that case, cairns are nothing but impact on the environment, since people will have to make their own way between them anyway. I totally agree that cairns are a good marker when there is an official trail that in parts has no visible trail (usually in boulders/lava/talus fields). btw, which desert of the southwest is in question? That's a LARGE area. If we're talking SoCal for example, the entire 700 first miles of the PCT are desert with trail so well maintained and visible that when I hiked it last year, I walked many nights well into night without having to take my flash light out until it became pitch black.
    - kylebarron 7y ago
      Good to see more thru-hikers on HN! I just thru-hiked in 2019 I could imagine there are trails in southern Utah and northern Arizona that might be heavily cairned
      - almog 7y ago
        Oh, hi there, it is good to see other thruhikers here indeed!:) Yes, I can imagine that being the case, I'm actually reading Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, mostly about the times he worked in Archs National Park and it sounds just like that. Fun fact you might share - I stumbled upon Edward Abbey following a quote I saw on a blaze in NorCal (which carried bullet hole, obviously, but it actually what made this quote stand out to me): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5bbY00X4AA_eeu.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5bbY00X4AA_eeu.jpg:large It was misattributed I think, I later found out these were Abbey's words.