[tmatlack]

Thanks CascadeHiker, Now that I see that plaque, that darn thing may have been there when I was on top in the early '70's. Isn't there a US Geologic Survey stake there too? Wow, that was a long time ago. The thing I do remember is a big scree chute that we all jumped in and rode scree fall almost to the bottom. Probably bad trail etiquette today. And the sheep of course. I was on a Sierra Club trail maintenance crew. Can't remember the name of the trail. Hope it's still there! Tom Thanks Braaaaaaaahhhhhhh.

[mossy mom]

pile of junk in meadow

An ever growing eyesore in the Col Bob Wilderness.

toilet paper in a tarn

I think this was also left by the shrine builders.

[puzzlr]

Posted a question asking who "Joe" was in another thread, but this looks like the right place to file this more permanently.

"Joe" memorial on Tiger Mountain

[car68]

[Dayhike Mike]

I miss the old title of this thread. Here's some plague related news in memoriam of the original subject line.

[realityguy]

That's fine..it won't come up for me to get a closer look..I don't mind one memorial on the trail/place the people died at..however..why are the same ones seen on several trails besides that singular trail?..just doesn't make sense throwing them up elsewhere! When I die..I'll have friends put them up on every trail I've ever been on just to give people that are bored looking at nature something to read while having to put up with all that greenery!

[moonspots]

[Crookedknife]

On one hand, I can understand the occasional memorial plaque because I come from a fishing community - the fatality rate of fishermen is extremely high, and you'll find such plaques on odd little islands in SE Alaska near where people lost their lives. I've lost uncles, classmates. You don't forget. They didn't deserve to die. If a plaque isn't a memorial, I don't thick it deserves such permanence. In the old view of my culture, it would make no sense to grant a permanent memorial to anybody: In the old way of thinking, it wasn't so much the life of a single person that was important so much as the role that person filled in the family. When someone died, the name they carried had to be passed on to someone else in their lineage in order to fill the rank that that name conferred. BUT, they didn't think of it as giving a name to a person. They were giving the person to the name. The identity had permanence in the family; the person did not, even though every life was treasured. Thus, memorials that would last only as long as the life of a person were used. These were totem poles. They were erected at the death of a chief to mark the passage of the chiefdom to someone new, and in general the pole would "die" (fall) after about one human lifetime. Sorry of the complicated post. Just trying to explain it as I understand it. I guess it goes to say that I don't really support memorial plaques unless they also support something of permanence, like an idea or a cause.