BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK – Cairn controversy! What’s your opinion? Badlands National Park is asking visitors to stop stacking rocks because cairns:
↟ Disrupt microfauna and flora
↟ Are a form of “natural graffiti”
↟ Violate Leave No Trace principles
↟ Can confuse and disorient hikers
↟ Damage and disrupt fossils
Instead of building cairns, the South Dakota park playfully encourages people to stack other things, like Legos, Jenga blocks or pancakes!
“While it is undeniable that they take skill to create and can be very beautiful, they also leave evidence of the impact people have on the environment,” said the National Park Service. “The mission of the NPS is to ‘preserve unimpaired natural and cultural resources.’”
Yosemite National Park officials previously stirred up controversy by asking visitors to topple cairns if they see one, for many of the same reasons above.
