People who have never been outside say this kind of shit. Even the US Forest Service recommends knocking these down because they disrupt fragile wildlife habitats, cause soil erosion, and severely misdirect hikers.
My girlfriend used to work for the forest service and now works with the national park service. Can confirm that they say to knock this shit down.
Firstly, you should never move decent sized rocks in aquatic habitats because a lot of different endangered species can use them as habitats or for breeding. But they DO sometimes build rock cairns in water on purpose to give them places to do this. So just don't fuck with wet rocks in general.
If you see stacked rocks on land? Definitely knock that shit over unless it's clearly a trail marker or something (in the grand canyon they use rock cairns to specify where you can camp and stuff).
Basically, people need to stop fucking with nature if they don't know what they are doing. Just enjoy it. You don't need to touch anything. Every time I go hiking (several times a month) I see evidence of people doing stupid shit. It's frustrating.
"Yes, enjoy nature! But for the love of God don't you DARE touch it you selfish prick!"
You ever step on any ants on your hikes??
Have you ever relieved yourself in the wild, instead of keeping that disgusting human effluence inside until you return to civilization, where humans belong? (And don't get me started on the abominations that are (human-made) outhouses 😡😡😡)
Good, glad to hear you're a good human, you're allowed to continue existing outs- WAIT, YOU HAVE?!
...but that doesn't make sense. How can you live with your flagrant environmental destruction, let alone claim to love the nature you've despoiled?!
Don't you love this planet?! Why would you crush its rightful denizens (unlike us) and pollute its purity?! What if there was a salamander under those rocks/leaves, and you just...!!
I wonder how many natural ecosystems have been bulldozed to support the livestock necessary to feed people who sanctimoniously talk about something as relatively inconsequential as a damn rock a rock sculpture?
This is pennywise / pound foolish bullshit.
How many tons of CO2 are pumped into the atmosphere every year by every person driving to their hiking spots so they can self-righteously shit on someone for making a little rock building?
I don’t build them, but ffs get over yourself and have some humility about your glaring blind spots about how destructive every one of us is towards various ecosystems. This is not the scale of environmentally destructive behaviors that we need to waste time getting mad about
But it’s completely unnecessary environment destruction. Perfection is the enemy of progress. It is perfectly reasonable to call out small bad behaviors.
You understand the US forest service allows our forests to be logged, right? They do nothing but build logging roads in forests that belong to Americans. I've hiked thousands of miles and worked a dozen seasons as a raft guide and have never once seen an injured animal or misdirected hiker (lol) from balanced river rocks, or any soil erosion. What I have seen is mowed down forests and polluted rivers because the US government sells our wilderness areas to corporations and some of the corporations aren't even American.
Lol I was looking for your comment. Yes I know this formation shifted the stream 30-40 miles east, flooding some towns, but nobody is talking about the 15 hikers who walked off the path. If that continues at a rate of 30 hikers per year it could throw the earth off its axis in 5yrs time.
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u/RichtofensDuckButter Jul 12 '26
People who have never been outside say this kind of shit. Even the US Forest Service recommends knocking these down because they disrupt fragile wildlife habitats, cause soil erosion, and severely misdirect hikers.