Because the Santa Monica Mountains and Angeles National Forest are both so close to this large urban area, surely we’ve all seen our fair share of graffiti on the trails – especially the more popular and easily accessible ones, but according to a story in the Fresno Bee, it’s becoming a problem even in National Parks.
You’d assume people who travel to National Parks have a greater respect for the natural state than others, but rangers found graffiti along the rocks of the popular Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park, as well as near a thousand year old pictograph in Sequoia National Park – which, to me, is pretty insane.
Thankfully, there are plenty of volunteer groups who routinely scour the forests to remove tags from rocks, but in some places, scenes like the picture above at the Devil’s Punchbowl are all-too-common. The Fresno Bee article calls for greater education, so visitors know the importance of keeping the area in as natural a state as possible, but something tells me the people who come to these places with markers or carving knives aren’t likely to drop by the interpretive visitors’ center in the first place.
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I’m constantly surprised by the amount of graffiti I find and the locations I find it. Sequoia’s been a problem for years.
Still, I couldn’t help but chuckle when I read the second paragraph. I mean, if the graffiti put up today stays around for a thousand years just like the pictograph, does it become a historical treasure? Tongue-in-cheek-food-for-thought…
Grafitti usually sucks. But sometimes it’s kinda charming. Check this out from Tenaja Falls in Riverside:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raphaelmazor/2419156911/in/set-72157604574119342/
GeekHiker makes a good point.
Personally, I don’t think I’d mind as much if the graffiti had any artistic value. “skizzles wuz here!”or something similar marked on a rock is unbelievably inane and deserves no amount of permanence, especially in these natural areas.
Raphael, agreed – it’s tough not to smile when you see stuff like that in the wilderness, even if it doesn’t necessarily fit in with the proper wilderness aesthetics.
This is still the best graffiti I’ve seen on the trail – and it’s easily removable, too!
I was on the Angeles Crest Highway yesterday and saw graffiti on the new barriers – so soon. Took some pictures before and after the snow. Very beautiful in a quiet, haunting way.
Just burns my @ss when I see tagging out on the trail. I was chatting with the caretaker at Sturtevant Camp one time and he said there is generally a “2 mile in” rule of thumb regarding graffitti, vandalism, etc. Meaning 2 miles in from a trailhead is about as far in the average hoodlum is willing go and do damage.
What’s the fine for graffiti in a National Park? I’m thinking it isn’t nearly enough. Anyone caught should get a hefty fine plus blacklisted for more than a year.
Stop kowtowing, and trying to apply enlightenment and tolerance to this crap. Graffiti is a sign of the second worst type of human garbage. Like cockroaches, the perpetrators should be exterminated on sight. As roaches they are not eligible for human consideration. All gangbangers and gangbanger wannabe’s should only have two rights in our country: 1) The right to be identified. 2) The right to be executed.