Cairns, Summit Registers & Geocaches... in the Wilderness?

[imike]

I'm not sure if this issue has been raised, but I was wondering if the time honored practice of piling up trail markers should be reviewed and discontinued?

As more time and people visit the trails, there becomes more chances for the cairns to misdirect a hiker as to provide any useful aid. Further, it would be nice, especially off trail, to maintain some illusion of exploratory hiking with fresh discovery, in addition, leaving the aspect of original plotting, planning and route finding. Now, with the advent of GPS there are alternative means to secure routes, if desired. It would be nice to not be subject to prior presence, and prior error....

In the Wilderness areas, there are not supposed to be any man made objects... which in it's way suggests the issue is already decided. I think it might be a benefit to hiking overall for this practice of recording the moment to be drawn to a close... and perhaps, the existing markers scattered to their original natural placements?

...thoughts?

[writelots]

I think cairns and geocaches are just like every other human interaction with wild areas: done sensitively they're great, done with typical human thoughtlessness, they're prone to become disastrous. Humans and their predecessors have been leaving their marks on the earth since we could create marks. Stopping it, even in special situations, would be going against our genetic programming (and I tend to think that most rules/codes that go against that programming are doomed to failure). Instead, we should ideally seek to educate and sensitize individuals who are in the wilderness to treat it with respect and tread lightly. :A1:

That failing, I suppose we should just lock 'em all out and bury trespassers in their own rubble.

[fricknaley]

personally, the only one that really annoys me are summit registers. i don't care about cairns. i see so few geocaches that i don't care about them either.

[Jeffshadows]

personally, the only one that really annoys me are summit registers. i don't care about cairns. i see so few geocaches that i don't care about them either.

Nick leaves clever cairn trails in the Front Range of the Catalinas to lead sorority girls off trail onto precipitous cliffs!!

[big_load]

If you really want to see a bewildering forest of cairns, follow some of social trails from the Peralta TH.

[Sredfield]

If you really want to see a bewildering forest of cairns, follow some of social trails from the Peralta TH.

or the route from the Humphrey's trail to the bomber wreck.

[hippiepunkpirate]

or the route from the Humphrey's trail to the bomber wreck.

I don't really remember cairns around there anywhere. I remember pink ribbons on trees near one of the switchbacks though.

[fricknaley]

nickfraley wrote:personally, the only one that really annoys me are summit registers. i don't care about cairns. i see so few geocaches that i don't care about them either.


Nick leaves clever cairn trails in the Front Range of the Catalinas to lead sorority girls off trail onto precipitous cliffs!!

they lead straight into cholla and catclaw patches..

[pencak]

You can’t reasonably have a beef with any man-made thing anyway, since the trails are man-made to begin with.

Bingo. If you want to have no visible human impact on the wilderness whatsoever then it's simple, just ban humans from the wilderness. However, I'd like to think of myself as part of the wilderness when I'm in it, with just as much "right" to be there as any other animal that lives in that place.

Carins are just a small pile of rocks intended to communicate something from one human to another. Other animals mark territory in various ways to communicate. Ours is just as valid but different. All that other stuff mentioned could be considered trash and gotten rid of but Carins are a communication device intended to save lives. You could die in other environments also but being unable to find your way back with a lack of water and extreme heat are a potent combination that could get lethal very quick.

Finally, if you're really familiar with the area there are too many of them, or they're along clearly marked trails or in the wrong place then kicking them over would be a service. After all, they're just rocks and once they're kicked over they lose their communication value and look like any other rocks laying around.

[tahosa]

When I volunteered for the USFS in CO. we were instructed to remove cairns both in the designated wilderness areas, and regular forest lands. As to caches in Wilderness Areas I have removed several of them that were placed in designated wilderness areas. And I am also an avid Geocacher, I can take the above comments in good stride. I will definately agree there are a lot of caches out there that are pure geotrash. But like a lot of other things in this world not everything is done in perfection or to the liking of others. There is a cache here in AZ that I know is in a Wilderness Area but I haven't rocked the boat yet about having that cache removed, but if I do something no one will know that I did it. It will just wind up in a trash can. As to the majority of my caches that are out there many of them are someplace in the backcountry of CO and not looked for all that much due to the difficulty of finding them. I even have one in San Tan Park that requires about a 10 mile hike, some knowledge about the fine art of land navigation. And it only gets found about once a year, and that park is real close to a major urban area. And if anyone wants to look for the cache I have in San Tan Park, I'll gladly take you along on a nice hike.

[RedRoxx44]

I don't like the huge cairns now in the Galiuros. But I do like the old cabins mine debris that by wilderness definition shouldn't be in there. I don't like senseless cairns right beside an obvious packed down path and multiples within sight along an obvious path.

[azbackpackr]

They are just piles of rocks that can be unsightly, but do no real harm, and occasionally may save a life. Pete Cowgill, a founder of SAHC, is well known as a cairn-kicker. I think sometimes they are useful, and keep people from going all over the place, such as on the Esplanade, keeping people on one trail instead of all over the cryptobiotic soil.

As for peak registers, they are supposed to be well-hidden so that they are not noticeable except to people who know where to look for them and want to sign them.

As for geocaching, a friend of mine has been busy doing that up here on the mtn. for several years. Although I am not really into that idea, I think just for fun I might spend a few hiking days looking for his caches, just an exercise with my GPS, because it will help me learn to use it for something other than just mileage. If they seem trashy or too obvious, I will hide them and let him know.

[Jeffshadows]

I don't like the huge cairns now in the Galiuros. But I do like the old cabins mine debris that by wilderness definition shouldn't be in there. I don't like senseless cairns right beside an obvious packed down path and multiples within sight along an obvious path.

I agree.

[stacelms]

As for peak registers, they are supposed to be well-hidden so that they are not noticeable except to people who know where to look for them and want to sign them.

They are supposed to be well hidden, but sometimes they are a mailbox, on a post.

[fricknaley]

i've never seen a register i consider well-hidden and i've been on my share of peaks. a pile of rocks along a trail is one thing, the same pile on a small summit is stupid (to me)

[Jeffshadows]

i've never seen a register i consider well-hidden and i've been on my share of peaks. a pile of rocks along a trail is one thing, the same pile on a small summit is stupid (to me)

Exactly; and it's getting retarded...They have a register at the entrance to Pontatoc Mine now, for crying out loud...

[azbackpackr]

Peak registers have a very long tradition in the hiking community. At one time, there were so few peak baggers that the registers didn't pose a problem, and (as on many of the peaks in the White Mtns.) you'd often see a register that hadn't been signed in several years, and you might know some of the other people who signed it. That was part of the fun. Now, although I am not going to be one to advocate for their removal, and having been one who has placed them on several not-very-well-known peaks, I am willing to concede that maybe they are becoming outmoded. There are always huge messy ones on Baldy, Escudilla, Baboquivari (which also had all sorts of other junk, whiskey, etc. on top last time I was there), etc. I still really enjoy finding and signing them on obscure peaks. They are not always in a summit cairn, but often are hidden nearby in a natural rock pile, and not all that easy to find.

i just recently looked at a register I placed on a named peak near Eagar, which is also on the AZ Big List of Peaks, which I placed there about 8 years ago, and it has been signed by only 5 people, all of whom I know. (Two of them were obsessive peakbaggers from SAHC, one was my son, one a local doctor who hikes a lot, and myself.)

[hippiepunkpirate]

The summit register on Fremont is well hidden, and it's not a very popular peak, so I signed it. The one on Humphrey's however is a big obnoxious box in plain sight. Doing the Humphrey's trail on a busy day hardly makes you feel like you're in the wilderness so I guess the register fits in alright. I only signed that register out of peer pressure from a buddy.

[fricknaley]

i'm aware of their history, i just care for it. and they're not that well hidden...summits aren't that big.

it's all just a matter of opinion. i know most people like them or they wouldn't be everywhere.

[BobP]

I only signed that register out of peer pressure

I never signed a summit reg...until Joe made me on the Double Motherlode. He said if you don't....I'll throw you in the snake convoy or feed you to the Cactus Kachina

[joebartels]

True, of course that was only after Bob made me drag a 3,300 lb 57 Chevy up there for his geocache. Most of the cairns were knocked down in the drag process too ;)