Kerry wrote on Jul 31^st, 2017 at 5:17pm:


It's a philosophical question. At Philmont, they have decided if something has been the way it is for 50 years it's historical and should remain.  I think it's interesting that we can despise a dry laid stone chair built by humans in the last few years but revere a painting on a rock by humans several 100 years ago. Are the metal remnants from the logging historic artifacts or trash violating LNT? Would a rock structure from logging era be ok but one from 10 years ago not be? I like the Philmont policy as being at least clear.

I try not to leave any trace, and carry out other people's trash if feasible. I don't stack stones except an occasional one around a fire pit, but am not bothered by and actually enjoy what some have built. And I like the several hundred year old grafitti.

BillConner wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2017 at 11:29am:

I've only recently come back from our month long trip down the Bloodvein River so I've just seen this response and feel I have to reply.  The Bloodvein, by the way, is an area where there are a great many rock paintings or pictographs.  But, Bill, it is critical to understand that rock paintings are not graffiti.  The intention of graffiti is to state, "I was here."  In some ways it is always a personal affirmation of my being and is, therefore, ego driven.  Pictographs are not that.  They represent teachings, not the person that put them there.  Pictographs mark places that are considered sacred - windows or access points for the acquisition of medicine -  and tell the story of the medicine and its nature.  My point is that what these ancient people were doing was not even remotely similar to painting graffiti on a wall.  It's a profound mistake to compare one to the other and suggest that the only reason pictographs are meaningful or acceptable is because they are old.  They are meaningful because they have meaning and that's why, I believe, they're still there after hundreds, sometimes even a thousand years or more.

BillConner wrote on Sep 20^th, 2017 at 12:42pm:

It would indeed be worthy of preservation, however, that's the point - in today's narcissistic age we are so distant from our environment that we simply don't have that kind of relationship with the natural world.  So when we paint on rocks, or for that matter, alter the environment in any way it's mostly about, "look at me," which, in my opinion, is not something that is either worth doing or preserving.