Where’d the trail go?

Trail markers in the desert are, by necessity,  rather different than what I’m used to seeing in Tennessee. In Tennessee, trail markers are either bits of paint on trees or, more commonly, square pieces of metal nailed onto trees lining the path.

The desert is rather lacking in the tree department plus the countryside is extremely delicate (seriously, go look up cryptobiotic soil) therefore it’s super important not to go off trail. The solution?  Cairns.

Where I usually hike, cairns are the equivalent of street graffiti. They disrupt the natural landscape and shout out “I was here!”

Utah seems to have as many if not more trails as Tennessee and certainly the national parks receive a lot more visitors than our state parks.  Cairns are an economical way to protect the delicate desert landscape and guide visitors over the expansive bald rocks.

There’s a fair amount of variety in both the quantity and the quality of the cairns. Some are just piles of loose stones like you or I might stack. Others are created out of large cut blocks – possibly leftover from the nearby stairs created to manage soil erosion. Still others appear to be loose stacks of stone but closer inspection reveals a metal spike in their core and mortar holding the rocks in place. Pretty cool!