If you spend a decent amount of time on hiking trails or in national parks, there’s a good chance you’ve seen some unnaturally stacked rocks here and there. These stacks, called ‘rock cairns’ are often used to guide hikers where the trail isn’t clear.
Rock cairns are necessary in many places, but building your own rock cairn, whether for fun or for social media clout, is a terrible idea. It’s difficult for some to understand why stacking your own is such a bad idea, so here’s Aussie YouTuber Wicked Wildlife to explain it in very simple terms:
“1. Rock Stacking is irresponsible – Long before balancing stones became trendy park rangers and game wardens built stone cairns as markers to keep people from getting lost. When people stack stones everywhere suddenly the one marking an important bend in the track looses its meaning which could lead to someone getting lost!
2. Rock Stacking is inconsiderate – Millions of people around the world venture into wilderness areas to escape civilisation and experience untouched environments. In the eyes on many people seeing man made stone cairns everywhere they go is no different to finding people have graffitied a cliff face with spray paint or left litter lying around. As such the act of balancing stones can actually impede on other peoples ability o enjoy nature
3. Its bad for the environment – Many animals around the world depend on rocks for survival, when being pick up 10 or 20 stones to build them into one stack they are essentially turning 20 potential homes into only 1 Here in Australia many saxicolous species have “rock removal” listed as one of the major threats such as the Cunningham Skink, Broad Headed Snake & Corrangamite Water Skink.”
So please stop stacking rocks! It’s really quite easy to just not do it!
