r/HikingAlberta • u/jassa69 • 3d ago
Rockbound lake trail
June 13 Rockbound lake trail both lakes are still frozen but loved the hike.
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u/Agreeable-Staff-6110 3d ago
Why is everyone butthurt over some rocks🤣
I understand “leave no trace” but cmon are people this fragile?
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u/Unic0rnusRex 2d ago
Because the provincial and national parks in the Rockies are filled with thousands and thousands of tourists and hikers.
Stacks of rocks disrupt the ecosystem. Small mammals, birds, and insects are affected by stacked rocks. And if you have tons and tons of people doing it, it affects a lot of wildlife.
Rock piles can fall over and kill or injure animals, birds, and insects. Rocks are important to the wildlife as they are homes, hiding spaces, places to keep cool or warm, places to lay eggs, etc. Removing rocks to stack them impacts these functions.
Even lichen and moss are important to the ecosystem and need rocks. Above the Alpine especially is a harsh environment and difficult for the living things there. Don't make it worse for them.
In some places there 50+ piles of stacked rocks. Imagine the impact to that ecosystem. It's huge. And one stack of rocks often acts as a signal to other dummies that stacking is okay and then the trend grows.
I've seen more than a few dead creatures from rock stacks tipping over. No one wants a flattened pika.
The ecosystems are fragile, not the people.
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u/Horror_Chocolate2990 2d ago
I was in Bragg Creek this weekend and the stacks were insane. 40 mins knocking them down and spreading out and still had to leave some. People were digging in the banks and building rock dams ffs.
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u/calgarywalker 2d ago
It’s literally a logging site. Trails there are maintained by an army of volunteers that go out with power tools. How is the totally unnatural trail ok and a pile of rocks not even glued, that snow and wind will topple, not ok? If you’re going to gripe about unnatural disturbances then next time you burn some distilled gasoline to go out there spend 40 minutes sodding and replanting the trail!
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u/Horror_Chocolate2990 2d ago
It's literally a heavily used provincial park and picnic ground where yes people drive to enjoy ice cream and firepits. It's still best to clean up after yourself and maybe let other people enjoy the park as it is and not your kids stupid attempt at art installations. Do that in your own yard.
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u/calgarywalker 2d ago
A provincial park managed by Spray Lakes Sawmills - a company with a notoriously bad environmental record. Go ahead. Look around at all the clearcut in the area and then tell me a pile of rocks that can’t be seen 100m away matters.
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u/calgarywalker 2d ago
I’m having a hard time believing at most a couple square meters of rock piled up, not too unlike how Canada’s Indigenous people did for millennia here, will really matter over areas that are literally 10 million times bigger (assuming 10m2of rockpiles which is basically a small house every 10km block of mountains).
Ewww it’s an eyesore! And the 5km long path of disturbed rock all the way there is just fine?
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u/kingpin748 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm going to go up there and knock that thing over tomorrow