lovers turn a blind eye to Leave No Trace when it comes to cairns, seeing them as an invitation to add or subtract a rock without toppling the stack. And therein lies the potential for confusion, even for people who should know better. Just ask Jim Davis, a former board member of the Ozark Trail Association. He led a hike up Black Mountain, following cairns that he thought were placed by the trail managers. They were instead of the willy-nilly variety, "and we ended up lost most of the day," Davis said. "The cairns led to a pile of rocks. Then, next thing you know, it's almost dark. We were lucky we ended up going in a circle. Even being proficient in the outdoors didn't help." Zarlenga said local incidents of moving or destroying cairns have been minor and isolated, though a few self- expressionists have lined the banks of the Buffalo, Jacks Fork, and Current rivers with their handiwork in southern Missouri and Arkansas. Removing, replacing, and adding cairns have caused a bigger stir in national parks, notably Zion, Hawaii Volcanoes, and Acadia. But holding hikers accountable is messy business. Given forest fires and other large-scale threats to these vast expanses of wilderness, cracking the whip on unauthorized rock stackers remains a relatively low priority with the National Park Service or Department of Natural Resources. So, we circle back to the honor system implicit in Leave No Trace and trusting your fellow hikers. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't hedge your bets. Rhodes advises registering at the trailhead and bringing along GPS and a trail app. Davis also advocates a compass and "good, old paper maps. Electronics can fail, so going old-school is a great fallback," he said.
terrain July/August 2019
17
hiking
ABOVE:
REI St. Louis' Susie Stevenson followed cairns on Colorado's Front Range.
LEFT:
Rock cairns commonly mark trails in areas where signs are impractical.
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