Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

General discussions on hiking in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest
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BurnsideBob
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Re: Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

Post by BurnsideBob » January 16th, 2017, 8:02 am

AAdamsPDX wrote:Thus when I see prayer stacks in the wild I have a completely different reaction. I see them as an expression of wonder, and a non-harmful way of expressing that wonder.

This was a stack on Muir Pass this summer.
DSCF3640.jpg
After the Muir Hut was built there was a tradition that everyone crossing Muir Pass bring a piece of firewood. The purpose of the hut was to provide shelter for those caught by bad weather on the pass, but as this photo shows (Actually taken below Wanda Lake a couple miles west), there are no trees, hence no wood, for miles.
Image

For those hiking the JMT, carrying firewood to the hut was a "rite de passage", a badge of honor, a time honored tradition. But after many years the hut became filled with firewood. In 2002 there was not one piece of firewood, but there was a sign on the mantle saying "No Fires".

Muir Hut.
Image

Opposite side of Hut showing chimney.
Image

For me hiking the JMT was something I yearned to do once I heard of it as a teenager. Then college, career, and family intervened and I gave up that dream I thought forever. I was surprised how emotional I became when I made it to the hut that day in 2002. For me getting to the Muir Hut was the spiritual center of the hike--not Forester Pass, not the summit of Mt Whitney--the Muir Hut.

Many religions have traditions of a long passage marked by ritual. Throwing stones at the devil while on the hadj. Carrying a scallop shell while on the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

So there seems to be a need for us to add our pebble or piece of wood to the cumulative pile of human experience that a cairn represents. So, generally, I don't knock cairns down, for I see them as someone's effort to stay on their path.
I keep making protein shakes but they always turn out like margaritas.

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retired jerry
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Re: Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

Post by retired jerry » January 16th, 2017, 9:31 am

and what would be done to someone that burned the wood recreationally? :)

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BurnsideBob
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Re: Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

Post by BurnsideBob » January 16th, 2017, 10:02 am

retired jerry wrote:and what would be done to someone that burned the wood recreationally? :)
Nothing. But you might have gotten some surly looks from 'true believers'.

In the 1960's, the bring wood policy was still followed. With the '70's there was a big increase in backpacking and the wood supply became a problem. I believe the wood was packed out, not burned, but I couldn't find an answer to when the Sierra Club, the de facto custodian of the Hut, started asking people NOT to take wood. I did find this, tho:

http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=131827 which gives some info about costs I hadn't seen before, and explains that the fireplace was blocked to keep marmots out of the hut interior.

In 2002 there weren't any 'donations' in the hut, although there were a couple plaques. Wish I had photo'd the interior.

View north west from the Muir Hut.
Image
I keep making protein shakes but they always turn out like margaritas.

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AAdamsPDX
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Re: Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

Post by AAdamsPDX » January 16th, 2017, 12:30 pm

BurnsideBob wrote:Many religions have traditions of a long passage marked by ritual. Throwing stones at the devil while on the hadj. Carrying a scallop shell while on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. So there seems to be a need for us to add our pebble or piece of wood to the cumulative pile of human experience that a cairn represents. So, generally, I don't knock cairns down, for I see them as someone's effort to stay on their path.
Beautifully put, and thank you for sharing your photos of Muir Pass. It was also a high for me, in such a unique and different way from other passes and views. That night in our tent, this is how I recorded the experience:
I watched as other hikers expressed their wonder. One young woman walked towards the western side of the pass and threw her arms wide to encompass the sky and all she saw spread out in front of her. Then she looked around self-consciously and went back to her pack. A young man walked in the same direction she did, and did a few Tai Chi moves, repeating the same “did anyone see that?” glance when he was done. Someone had built a prayer stack, and I offered another rock and my own prayer, though I could hardly say for what. Just gratitude, really. That this place exists. That I could stand there for a brief time.
I found it a little sad that everyone seemed to feel the need to respond in some way to this place, but everyone seemed also to feel self-conscious about that need.
"The world begins where the road ends." ~Eddie Vedder
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AAdamsPDX
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Re: Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

Post by AAdamsPDX » January 16th, 2017, 12:35 pm

retired jerry wrote:and what would be done to someone that burned the wood recreationally? :)
Speaking of burning things recreationally, I saw more joints on the JMT than I've seen anywhere else in my life. :lol:

(Just doing my part to contribute to thread drift.)
"The world begins where the road ends." ~Eddie Vedder
http://www.hriggsphotography.com/

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retired jerry
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Re: Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

Post by retired jerry » January 16th, 2017, 1:10 pm

I wonder how that's effected by altitude

Does it make you more high? or less?

Does it make altitude sickness worse? Or is coughing worse?

Experiments called for?

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Re: Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

Post by adamschneider » January 16th, 2017, 4:15 pm

Cairn trivia: in Hawaii (where I am right now, nyah nyah nyah), the boundaries between land divisions were marked by cairns (ahu), and sometimes those boundary cairns would have an offering to a chief on or near them — frequently a pig (pua'a). So those boundary markers came to be called ahupua'a, or pig-cairns. And then ahupua'a came to mean the land divisions themselves. So each island is divided into a handful of districts (moku), and each district is divided into a bunch of pig-cairns!

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retired jerry
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Re: Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

Post by retired jerry » January 17th, 2017, 6:16 am

I hope you're worrying about what the thaw is going to do to your house :twisted:

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Re: Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

Post by adamschneider » January 17th, 2017, 10:39 am

retired jerry wrote:I hope you're worrying about what the thaw is going to do to your house :twisted:
It's gonna make my yard really, really wet.


Here's some silly non-functional ahu just for Tom:
Polihale cairns.jpg

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Waffle Stomper
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Re: Do you know what a Beinakerling is...? (and a mea culpa)

Post by Waffle Stomper » January 17th, 2017, 3:23 pm

I have to confess to adding my own little stack to the Tom, Dick and Harry Beinakerling. I am glad to know that it's intent was as an actual cairn and not at one time a sort of burial mound, not that I really thought it was, then again one never knows what might be under there. :shock: :lol:
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir

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