Cairns and LNT?

"So, both extreme positions are asinine. Unfortunately, most other people lack judgment as good as mine. ;)"

+1 to your whole post, even if it does mean agreeing with you. ;)

+2

Heck, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of cairns are built by people who don't even know that they are supposed to be a navigation aid! They probably just think it's what the cool people do…

They're not always meant as a navigation aid – that's a wholly modern hiker interpretation. Throughout written and unwritten history they've been used for many other thing such as graves, religious locations, astronomical alignment, and battle strategy. For example, native americans would use them to mark a cliff and, when pursued, use the cairn as an indicator when to turn suddenly and send their pursuer off the cliff.

Here in the PNW I've seen modern cairns set up to indicate a popular hangout spot for the local kids and also to mark a few memorials for people who died in the wilderness.

This is why I guess I'm not so much against cairns – they imbue a place with some history, the intersection of man and wilderness, and are in most cases an aesthetic and low/no impact homage to our place in wilderness.

"…[T]hey imbue a place with some history, the intersection of man and wilderness, and are in most cases an aesthetic and low/no impact homage to our place in wilderness…

True, many cultures feature stone piles and prayer flags. But I think I would be pretty upset if I encounter this out in the backcountry:

In a place like Tibet, this would be an integral part of local culture. But here in contemporary America, we have no such practice — and thus no widespread acceptance. I think we should limit cairns to serving as trail markers — and only in reasonable number and size.

Not meaning to negate anything in Kier's post above, but just a general post…

>>But I think I would be pretty upset if I encounter this out in the backcountry

Have you ever encountered that in the North American backcountry? From this thread, it appears the worst there is in NA are some roughly 6' cairns, or maybe some smaller multiple piles. To some degree, it seems we are, as gramma would say, "Picking the fly p00p out of the pepper"

Of all the LNT topics out there, it's hard for me to believe this is the one that generates 5 pages of posts. Why not something with real genuine impact on the environment (not just our aesthetic interpretation of it), such as toiletry habits?

Note: really BPL? p00p is profanity? *sigh*

> How bad would you feel if you discarded some cairns that Roger C temporarily put up
> to mark his return home?
I can't imagine HE would be much concerned … :-)

I had better add that we only do that in one or two places where the navigation is really tricky. I suspect that we would recognise the places now anyhow. And some of our 'cairns' would be invisible to most anyone else anyhow: a single stone on a log, or a stick jammed into a crack.

Cheers

Good thing we saw this one. Would have walked right by the fork.

And I usually think my CA neighbors to the south as quiet, reserved people.

What a shame to ruin a nice stretch of nothing but rocks along the Georgian Bay.

I don't build cairns.

I don't tear 'em down.

Thus do I leave no trace of my passing.

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