Rock stacking is most definitely vandalism. Our national parks have been set aside by Congress to preserve the landscape as it was, is and (hopefully) always will be… natural. Rock stacks are anything but natural. They are a blight on the landscape and do not belong on our national parks.

As John Muir said: “As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.”

I see nothing in there about stacking rocks.

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 24, 2015 - 07:57pm PT
Like I said, above, this is obviously NOT Goldsworthy's work, it was just a turn of phrase.

Letting an old Mirror Lake parking lot become a special place for a very benign but beautiful form of human art at this special,

Maybe some of these hippy artists would like some rocks stacked into their keesters???

Which is worse to you; stairs or stacks?

One of the absolute mellowest guys I know goes off like a Roman Candle when he sees cairns. It's like all his frustrations are bottled up then released when he see cairns.

but I know someone that will spend all day knocking cairns over.

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
...

for those that believe the Yosemite Wilderness is trammeled

gleefully erected

Clint, why is Half Dome considered wilderness when the cables (which would be tacky in Disneyland) are still firmly attached? Half Dome (like Cerro Torre) is a singular expression of natural granite architecture and deserves much more than having pitiful human architecture affixed to their flanks.
Yosemite, unfortunately, is the paradigm example of noxious human intrusion into a natural cathedral of profound importance.....Japan could do no worse if it existed there.

There has been this shift, which I suspect has gone too far, of separating humans and human activity, from nature. 6 inch holes rubbed into rocks by Indians is ok, because that was the way it was, but stacking unaltered rocks is not, even though that is the way it is? I'm not sure I see the logic of the difference.