Don’t Move The Rocks!
BY Herschel Smith
1 year, 10 months ago
If you move a rock from one place to the next you may have inadvertently disturbed the home of a tiny critter living beneath it. Moving stones can also contribute to soil erosion or destroy the delicate microhabitats plants and animals need to survive. Also, moving a rock to add to the top of a cairn could cause the whole thing to come down, rather defeating the object.
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So what should you do if you see a rock cairn? Well, the advice from the National Parks Service is to leave them well alone, no tampering, building, or adding to existing ones. Don’t be tempted to kick them over either. If that won’t convince you, maybe the law will: the practice of moving the rocks could be seen as vandalism which is illegal.
Yea whatever. The NPS doesn’t own the earth or any part of it. “The cattle on a thousand hills” and all of creation belongs to God.
I wouldn’t like it very much if a vandal built a rock cairn to mislead me on the trail. But some of them are needful as long as they are located correctly. As for that little critter who might get disturbed if I move one, he can find another place to live.
If I need to collect rocks to build a fire ring, that’s what I’ll do.
On January 10, 2023 at 10:46 pm, PGF said:
I like to throw random rocks and random things. I’ll keep doing it, thanks.
On January 11, 2023 at 12:08 am, Archer said:
As for that little critter who might get disturbed if I move one, he can find another place to live.
It amuses me that NPS thinks telling people not to move rocks will keep it from moving. If a person doesn’t move it, a falling tree, a heavy rain storm, or a passing deer or elk will. Not on purpose, necessarily, but it doesnt matter. The end result is the same for whatever might be living under it; that rock’s gonna get moved sooner or later.
It takes some kind of hubris to think that humans are the only things that disturb habitats. Then again, that’s basically the whole “climate change” argument in a nutshell, too.
On January 11, 2023 at 7:11 am, 41mag said:
LOL at PGF :)
This person got up, clothed themself, and possible drove to work and wrote this nonsense. Now that’s funny.
On January 11, 2023 at 9:46 am, Don't mind me said:
How many people want to go out and move some rocks after reading this?
On January 11, 2023 at 10:45 am, Latigo Morgan said:
I was at an NPS site this past summer and actually saw signs warning against moving rocks. Not against taking the rocks, but just moving them. I had to laugh out loud about it in front of one of the rangers.
That said, I read the article and kept waiting for the punch line before I realized the author was serious. I am dumber for having read it.
When it comes to rock cairns, you don’t know who made those. It could have been a trippy dippy hippy last week, or it could have been Spanish explorers and treasure seekers from 500 years ago. The secret to telling how old a rock cairn is is to look at the lichen on the rocks. But, some idiots are going to decide they have to dismantle every rock cairn they come across “for the little critters” and destroy valuable historical markers.
On January 11, 2023 at 2:53 pm, xtphreak said:
Gravity.
It moves rocks.
It wears down mountains.
Feces Occurs.
On January 15, 2023 at 9:41 am, Bradley A Graham said:
The last time I went with my girls to Phantom Ranch @ the bottom of the Grand Canyon was in early 2021.
They had trekking poles and I carried my $5 yard sale MSR ice axe just to keep my balance.
I had the displeasure of meeting a NPS employee coming up South Kaibab who found fault with my ice axe and accused me of carrying mining equipment within the park boundaries and said she had met me and told me about mining implements before even though this was the first time we had ever encountered each other.
She finally continued on her way apparently firm in her belief that she had chastised a park visitor for daring to posses equipment she felt was contrary to her ideas.
Another un-elected bureaucrat with rocks in her head.