[Ski]

[Ski]

John, we will have to agree to disagree. I will defer to the judgement of the Trails Supervisor, who instructed me to hang the tape at those two locations I mentioned above. (I had to call and ask a question about something else... he's been there 35 years, FTR.)

[wildlifr]

[wildlifr]

[wheatie]

[Bedivere]

[wheatie]

^ he will see the piles from knocked over cairns and know you or your like have been there...

[Randito]

I think the use of flagging for SAR operations is appropriate sense -- protection of people's lives is a higher priority than avoiding littering. Use of plastic flagging in other cases is goofy: 1) Now it is easy to buy and use handy GPS gadgets that track your route up and will guide you home without the bother of tying a ribbon on trees as you pass. 2) Biodegradable marking tape is available, so if you need to mark a route (outside of a wilderness area) for others to follow -- at least this stuff won't last decades. In any event anybody using marking tape (for whatever reason), that doesn't remove it on the way out is being a slob. Rock cairns consisting of three rocks are less offensive. But when everybody adds a "I was here rock" to the pile -- it can get ridiculous.

[DIYSteve]

Flagging is obnoxious and IMO has no place in the wilderness, but who among us hasn't benefited from flagging a time or two?

[kbatku]

[kbatku]

[NacMacFeegle]

I don't see rock cairns as offensive visually, but I do object to them in circumstances where they may lead casual hikers into places that would be better left undisturbed, or where hikers who are inexperienced in cross country travel may become lost.

[joker]

We have put surveyor's tape on our dog in hunting season. Leashed dog. I appreciated the tape someone had placed leading from where the steep climber's/fisherman's trail up to Kindy ridge hit the snow to about where the route starts traversing left to the saddle, for our return trip. Made it pretty straightforward to find the trail again on our ski back down, once we intersected the taped line thanks in part to having written down a compass bearing and altitude notes on our ascent. May have saved quite a bit of thrashing. A GPS may have sufficed but we were using altimeter/compass. Most tape I've seen has been a good indicator that we were not on route - a sign of someone else in the same situation. Same cane be said of many small/hasty type cairns. There were some strategically placed cairns on the Alpine Lakes High route that weren't strictly necessary but I won't lie - we appreciated them.

[cairn builder]

I never use cairns to mark routes, only to mark the passage of time. Before I'm on the same hike again, they return to thettalus field from whence they came. I defy any of you to spot the collapsedpile of rocks within the giant ppileof rocks covering the whole side of the mountain.

[Gil]

I've photographed all of your cairns and sent the images to the Cairn Relief Bureau.