A southbounder named VAGABOND has been using his lekis to scratch his damn name into rocks above tree-line…seeing this on Moosilauke a day or two ago, and then hearing that there are more of them North of here really bugs me.
He should be pretty near you Balt Jack…or south of Hanover.
At least someone let him know he is an ass.
Lion King
some body better put a stop to this! can you believe those poor rock! I mean the humanity! scratching your name in a rock. doesn’t this guy know that other people will see this! those poor rock have been there for years just minding their own buisness and now this! Maybe we should bring the law into play. Are there laws againt rock scratching?
Goof
I hope Goof is just goofing. Scratching your name in rocks along the AT is a major breach of LNT, and leaves an ugly scar for all to see, and for many to emulate. This hiker needs to be educated that he is defacing National Park Service property - something that belongs to all of us. IMO, there is no difference between what Vagabond is doing, and spray painting the walls of the Grand Canyon or Half Dome in Yosemite. In the eyes of the National Park Service, there is probably no distinction either. I will forward this information along to the proper authorities.
Jeffrey Hunter
Goof ,dont be a smart ass. Wouldnt you want to look at things knowing that even though your not the first or only one there, your dont have to be subjected to some other dumbass’s abuse and defacing of the small amount of natural beauty that we have left. Leave no trace or just dont leave your house in the first place,because if you think this sort of thing is “ok” then maybe graffiti on your car is in order as well. Or destruction of something else that you hold sacred.
Virginian
Funny thing is, hundreds of years ago indians scratched s**t all over canyon walls, etc. and we rope it off and call it art.
wolf
Wolf, that’s beacuse in many instances the petroglyphs are the only source of information we have about a long vanished culture. These rock drawings tell us about their religion, their diet, their hunting habits, and much more. Perhaps it might even tell us why they vanished. That’s a lesson our culture could use these days - IMO. Some knucklehead running around calling himself “Vagabond” and scratching his name into rocks along the AT in 2004 is quite a differt story.
But you know that.
Jeffrey Hunter
Do you think Goof cares about LNT? Check out his CDT journal where he mentions cutting switchbacks and digging a trench around his tarp.
Bo
Hmm, in what form and where would it be acceptable…as an art form? I did the Knobstone Trail in Indiana a few years ago and part way thru, up on a knob of rock, I spied some scratchings in the cliff face. Hoping down I looked closer and saw that it was a name and date, carefully made with a pocket knife I assume. I think it was something like
C. Frost 1901, but in old English script with the swoopy nine etc and squirrely C. Beautiful, historic and yet still a tag. If Og left his mark ten thousand years ago I guess its still the same thing. If Vagabond had taken the time to do a cool stone carving, yeah it’s defacement, but yet it isn’t. I guess its what is acceptable for the current body…which is take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprint. Who knows, a thousand years from now some culture may look at the AT and wonder who in there right mind walks anywhere.
I find those charcoal pits in Conn facinating, the whole country side was bare of trees, the smell of smoke, whiskey, a pig cooking over a fire. Now that was ugly but historic. I made dinner over some charcoal I collected and dried from one of those and it was cool.
Having looked at the wagon ruts on the Oregan Trail it does make you think about what where and in what period in time we leave our mark on the earth, pretty or ugly.
Bushwhack
Those who participated in threads here and on whiteblaze who actually defended the “right” of hikers to deface shelters by carving or spray painting them with graffiti. They say it “adds a sense of history.” They even make a sport of it by doing what they call “tagging.”
Someone should just “tag” their car or home and see how sporting they find that.
It’s not much of a leap from vandalizing shelters to vandalizing rocks, trees, etc.
“Skyline”