HikeArizona.COM

I like words, and as some of you know, I cringe when they are misspelled or mispronounced. (Not that I don't contribute my fair share to those unutterable travesties.)

Anyway, I notice two things with the younger generation of hikers, regarding rock trail markers: 1) They don't know how to pronounce "cairn," and 2) Somehow, the useful word "duck" has been disappearing from the lexicon, so now if you ask people in a hiking group if they know what a "duck" is, only the grizzled old guys who have been hiking for 50 years can give you the answer.

1. A "cairn" consists of a lot of rocks piled up to mark a trail. Usually more rocks than are necessary. A cairn also might mark the top of a peak, and could be very large, as tall as a person.

2. "Cairn" is NOT PRONOUNCED "Karen." It is not a chick's name, okay? It is NOT a two-syllable word, okay? It's a one-syllable word that rhymes with "bairn."

3. A "DUCK" is a trail marker using no more than two rocks. It is a better kind of trail marker. You can easily kick it over, too, if it seems unnecessary, and it won't hurt your foot to do so.

I would like to see the word "duck" to come back into common usage. So, I hereby announce that it is now coming back into common usage. So, please use it, and explain to others what it means.

Thank you!

Apparently I mislabeled this duck as a cairn. [ photo ]

quack

Speaking about pet peeves... How 'bout those who pronounce the word so it sounds like barn!? Either they were absent that day from English class or they were too stoned to pay attention. Duck is so much less complex!

If you're Aussie, there's not a whole lot of pronouncing the letter "r" so Cairns sounds a lot like "cans". Similarly, they pronounce Melbourne "Melb'un".

I still prefer "big pile of rocks". I've never met anybody who mispronounces it or doesn't know what it means.

Agreed or we could just call them Steve.

The cairn - duck thing seems to a location thing. California people call them ducks, some others probably do, too, but everyone else seems to favor "cairn". Perhaps a duck always denotes a small 2 or 3 rock construct, whereas a cairn can be a small or massive. I regard it mostly as semantics.

Semantics, shemantics... Some will say we are just...

............beating a dead duck?

I like how my Japanese friend says it....kerun.
Now I can't say it any other way.

azbackpackr wrote:Not that I don't contribute my fair share to those unutterable travesties.

I have to admit I first thought she was talking about transvestites.

I WAS! I just can't spell it! Transvestite ducks!

This is all too confusing, in Minnesota, we just whack off a couple of branches that were probably blocking the trail anyway. No pronunciation or spelling problems there. Note to Joe: Maybe we need a spellchecker.

Minnesoootans easily confused, yah?

@Alston Neal
@azbackpackr


As much as I'm tempted... I won't be goaded into (or accused of) hijacking another thread! And yes... some might say... I'm ducking my responsibilities...

I went hiking with one of my friends for the first time, and he called it a stacky rock. Now it just sort of stuck. Can't wait for the next time we go out and I call out "duck". I will have to turn around to see what he does.

Just read a Dec 2011 article in Desert Leaf (the Catalina Foothills magazine), and it quotes the famous Shawn Redfield of the Arizona Trail Association. ;). He is quoted here saying a cairn is something big that is arranged well so that the rocks all lean against each other rather than simply being piled up, so that with wind and temperature changes they won't fall down. The ATA standard they use for size for a cairn is 24-36 inches. They are therefore at least 3 feet in diameter and can be seen even when there is some tall grass or snow on the ground.

A duck isn't necessarily 2 rocks or a certain number of rocks piled up, but according to ATA trail crews is a small, loosely piled set of stones put together by someone that does not meet these standards and could fall down based on weather conditions.

Works for me! Now I'm gonna start calling a duck a duck! :whistle: :bdh:

Interesting, btw, to see a magazine article on rock piles, sredfield!

It's nice to know the real definition, but language is ever evolving, and sometimes you have to go with the commonly used word/definition rather than the historically correct one. If you post a hike description that instructs somebody to turn out of Barks Canyon at the "easy-to-spot duck" there might be a lost hiker...

Any Egyptians available to build a cairn that large? :roll:

chumley wrote:It's nice to know the real definition, but language is ever evolving, and sometimes you have to go with the commonly used word/definition rather than the historically correct one. If you post a hike description that instructs somebody to turn out of Barks Canyon at the "easy-to-spot duck" there might be a lost hiker...

Yup, that there hiking sport has a steep learning curve.... ;)

People CAN learn. Theoretically they could learn to not say "Karen" also. I'm not getting my hopes up, though.