High Sierra Topix

It kinda seems like 99% of the cairns I see fall into three categories:
1) Just stacked for fun (not useful)
2) People who don't know where they're going put them up (the opposite of useful since anyone following cairns will be misled by them)
3) Along parts of a trail that are already easy to follow (not useful)

Every once in a blue moon cairns can be helpful, usually on a rock climbing or fishing approaches, on unpopular cross country routes, or from historic routes. Popular routes seem to be covered by cairns from the three categories above.

Long story short I knock down lots of cairns in those first three categories, but only in places I am very familiar with. It's fun to go places and not see any signs of people.

The trail itself is an artifact of human use. When on any trail, you are NOT in a place where there are no signs of people. A few cairns along a well-used trail do not bother me at all. Yes, it certainly can get overdone.

What concerns me more are the cairns that have been put up on off-trail routes such as Roper's High Route. Yet when I see them, I am very ambivalent about knocking any down. They were not there when I did the route. It is like you do not miss what is not there, until it IS there. Granted, they did to some degree assure me that I was on route. So, who am I to judge the usefulness? Did not need them before; yet benefit from reduced anxiety when I run into them now.

Regarding why people put them up- I have also seen many put up to indicate a nearby campsite. If the campsite is illegally close to the trail, I do knock those down.

I have noticed in proximity to some popular camp areas that lack ample duff zones suitable to dig a cat hole, a practice has emerged of marking a covered cat hole with a ring of small marble and palm size stones. Don't ask how I figured this out! I thought it was a creative and considerate way to address the issue of digging up not so old cat holes. These rock circles are not noticeable beyond a few feet. A prime example of this practice can be found at Trail Lakes, on the Mono Pass Trail, above the Mono Creek basin. I am kind of surprised I have not read of anyone else encountering this phenomenon.

Ed

Oh my! By the time you have to mark old cat holes, it is time to close the area for restoration or put up a solar out-house. The camping area by Muir Ranch is a prime example of camping gone too far; I will never camp there again. I see this as a Muir Ranch-USFS joint problem and joint-funded solution. (why not an outhouse like LYV?)

i could probably count on 2 hands the number of times in 25 years I found cairns useful

One November I was climbing Mount Washington NH via Tuckerman Ravine in fresh snow. When I got to the last mile before the summit, the line of cairns was vital. The holes between the boulders were about two feet deep, and the snow was about one foot deep. I could barely see from one cairn to the next.

I too have found some cairns very useful. Especially early season where not being the dead of winter, spotty snow cover makes it easy to lose the trail. This was the case years ago on the north rim trail that goes up to the top of El Capitan. Our group benefited from the cairns. I was dismayed when one of our members took it upon himself, to knock them all down on the way out after he used them. How hypocritical. I also have found useful cairns that show the path around recent deadfall. And in thick fog or a summer snowstorm, cairns have helped a lot.

During official trail maintenance it is appropriate for the FS/crews to take out excessive cairns and rogue cairns that lead nowhere. But I do not see that a well-placed cairn is any more "counter wilderness" than the man-made trail itself. Personally, I have bigger fish to fry than obsess over cairns. For example, illegal campfires left smoldering. Those I always put out.

In my age I have become very absent minded. So please, if should anyone pass by my property and notice a line of cairns, do not knock them down; they help me find my car, and likewise find my way home from the senior center.

Ed

That's what those little bumps on the road are for, Ed. They're just cairns to keep you in your lane.

Markskor was afraid OldRanger wouldn't find his way back into camp, so he built this trap:




Worked!