re: Rock-stacking/ Cairns - worthy of death or harmless fun?

Time to drop some knowledge. Ftr, I haven't read any of the posts following the op.

It was an ancient Indian tradition to place a rock on a pile at the crossroads of a trail. If the pile was too big, they would start a new pile. I am actually not sure the reason for this. Perhaps it was a symbolic paying of a toll, or a symbolic lightening of the load they carried for it was one less decision they had to make, or perhaps it was to honor the Gods.

What is strange is there are similar traditions in Tibet.

Indians also used to say that their people drove other people from the lands they took in America.

Maybe the cairns grew out of that. However, technically I wouldn't even call them cairns, as cairns were a place of entombing the dead. What's sad is I even know how to say it in Gaelic.

I have WAY to much useless knowledge built up.

Anyway. Back to your question. Perhaps it grew from people seeing the Indian piles, and thinking it was something they should do. The tradition was more specific to the Indians of the deserts and mountains in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, eastern California, etc... Could easily have developed from that. If so, I hope they know why they do it, because it is something I would wish to remember to do.

Edit: Not to build the rock stacks in the pictures, but to place a rock at the crossroads.

Sorry for bloviating.





Seriously, it might have come from that if it started out west.

Just sayin.

I've seen them in Chewacla. Everytime I pass one on the bike, I make it a point to knock it over.

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Well, YOU may, but I doubt that was the thinking when you see them on beaches, etc. I've seen them on the coast in Maine, in northern Michigan, and at Ka Lae. Trust me, there's no need for marking trails at Ka Lae. You either walk back to the road, or straight into the Pacific.

I subscribe to the theory that it's stoners thinking they've created rock art.

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I've never see anything close to the pics in this thread. In fact, I've never seen a cairn that I felt was out of place. They're common markers out west. Usually find them in places like this where the trails are hard to find.

Rock stacking is a normal human behavior that goes back thousands of years. It's almost instinctual. Look at Stonehenge. It's out of that tradition that we got skyscrapers.

These folks need to staaaaahhhhp.

I only seem to see this type in Louisiana, though...

Dude. I hiked Panther Creek a few years ago. Beautiful hike but it was a bitch getting out.