Apparently the huge cairn on Rincon Peak was built a really long time ago by surveyors.
A historic landmark at Saguaro National Park has been dismantled, according to park officials. The rock cairn on Rincon Peak, which has stood tall since 1903, is believed to have been broken up recently, but the park has not had any leads on who may be responsible. The Saguaro National Park structure was used for the development of detailed maps of the southern portion of the Arizona Territory prior to statehood.
I noticed it had been dismantled on a visit April 3.
Authorities are investigating @BobP 's alibis for the time since it was last known to be standing.
@chumley
It was gone when I was there on March 7. I don't know how someone would have the energy to start taking down a massive pile of rocks after all of that climbing...
@chumley
it has been a recognized survey monument by USGS since 1935. there is no other monumentation at that peak. i can understand that some feel that cairns in an of themselves are vandalism, but this one was different.
There are just two switchbacks left. And another half-mile to the destination...
I'm having a hard time getting really worked up about this. It's a man-made structure that doesn't seem to have any real historical significance. At what point in time did it become important? 1935? 1980?
@ShatteredArm
NPS considers anything over 50 years old to be protected as a historical artifact. In Grand Canyon, trash heaps of rusted cans from old pioneer camps must remain in their current state ... even though it's just a pile of trash.
Is this true for piles of rocks too? I dunno.
It was an impressive structure. I never knew the history. Perhaps an informational sign would have helped visitors understand the significance and avert this fate. It could have been placed in the summit sign-in box to prevent yet another manmade object being placed in the wilderness.
Maybe a boy scout troop from Tucson will make it a project to rebuild it as closely to the original as possible. Are boy scouts still a thing or did they get sued into oblivion? I digress....
I'm not sure what my spirit animal is, but I'm confident it has rabies.
@chumley
Yeah, I'm not really commenting on the legality of the whole thing, just saying it seems like something that's not really worth getting worked up about. I went up there in 2017 and I honestly don't even really remember it (for whatever reason I was focusing more on the view), and I would've never even guessed something like that would've even been protected. How is the average person supposed to know a pile of rocks is 100 years old?
Honestly, the NPS should've put up a sign that says "this is a historic pile of rocks" if it was really that important.
Hope they don't rebuild it - was blocking the 360 view and covering up a beautiful slab.
A sign with historic photo would be nice and as someone mentioned might have prevented it being torn down if it was there to begin with.
I learned relatively recently that Rincon peak was an important heliograph site plus lots of other interesting facts like some of the peaks in the rincons were named something else back then.
Some peaks were named after Tucson settlers and its just interesting to consider that you can have your name on a peak at one point and taken off the map completely later on.
@air
Or you can have a name for a peak that works well for hundreds of years, only to have some politicians rename it Mount McKinley. The same is true for many Arizona peaks. Native names, then Spanish, then Anglo.
There is a point of no return unremarked at the time in most lives. Graham Greene The Comedians
A clean house is a sign of a misspent life.
My photos of Mollies Nipple are incorrectly associated with that area; those photos are in Utah, but I have also been near Mollies in Parashant, which is where the mapping is associated with; and I might have a photo of it in one of the generic Parashant photosets.
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