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

[Splintercat]

If you've been around this forum for awhile, you may know that I've earned a HIGHLY UNFAIR reputation for kicking over cairns. It's true, I generally dislike finding New Age-inspired stacks of rocks out in the wilds, but I'm a big fan of cairns and have built and maintained many. For me, the obvious difference is in the way-finding function of cairns vs. the "Hey, look a me, I was here!" seeming intent of rock stacks that flies in the face of the no-trace concept. So, I was a bit chagrinned when this old Cross & Dimmitt postcard popped up a few years ago:



Not only does it feature flapper-era yahoos on the (hopelessly, apparently?) banned clifftop above the Punchbowl, it ALSO shows a bunch of rock stacks left by hikers. These scene was captured about ten years after the trail was completed, so it's safe to say that rock stackers pre-date the New Age significantly... hmm...

Then last week I was in Washington D.C. and was visiting some of my standard haunts and stumbled across a rotating exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History: an absolutely stunning photographic tour of Iceland, featuring the photography of naturalist Feodor Pitcairn:



Including absolutely surreal stuff like this:



Walking through the exhibit, I then came across this:



Hmm... well, it looks like a cairn, right? Purely functional -- and that makes sense in Iceland, right? Read on...



So.... not exactly the purely functional cairn, right? Hmm... well, I'm not ready to sign on to the multitudes of rock piles in places like Eagle Creek fitting the Beinakderling tradition -- I doubt most hikers there could place Iceland on the map, for starters -- but we DO seem to have at least one Beinakerling here in Oregon: it's where the trail to Tom Dick and Harry Mountain hits the summit ridge, and you definitely can't miss it:



This functions as a cairn, as there's a sharp bend in the trail to the east here -- and very old path that continues west along the ridge that is potentially confusing. But a closer look at the Audrey II-style mini-stacks growing on the shoulders of the main rock pile suggest that this has morphed into a bonafide Beinkerling:



So yep... I'll probably still continue to "retire" most rock stacks... unless they seem to be Beinkerlings...

Tom

[retired jerry]

interesting Tom

if it has a clever name then it's okay

[Aimless]

Apparently, the tradition of each passerby adding a stone to a cairn as a means of accumulating merit exists in Tibet also. The cairns are often located at the apex of a high pass, so they have some functional aspect to them, too.

[acorn woodpecker]

Very interesting...but a thread about cairns referencing a photographer with the name "Pitcairn" raises the irony level a bit!

[texasbb]

Interesting. So what do you call it when a Beinkerling gets humbled by someone who, perhaps taking the blame unfairly, kicks it down to size?

PCT in Goat Rocks, 2013:


Same one, 2016:

Very interesting...but a thread about cairns referencing a photographer with the name "Pitcairn" raises the irony level a bit!

I noticed that, too...seemed suspicious.

[Splintercat]

...and on that point, wouldn't a "cairn" in a "pit" simply be... a filled hole in the ground..?

@Texas -- I've seen a couple of bonafide cairns meet that fate and figured it was just freeze/thaw or perhaps a small avalanche. I generally reassemble them, much like Dorothy, the Tin Man and Cowardly Lion re-stuffing the Scarecrow. If only cairns had a brain...

Tom

[AAdamsPDX]

To reinforce your research a bit and add to the point Aimless made about Tibetan tradition...I learned about prayer stacks while visiting a Buddhist temple with students in South Korea years ago. They each said a prayer and left a stone. It's possible something was lost in translation but I've always found it a beautiful idea. 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, unless someone is putting giant rocks in places where they could harm vegetation or wildlife. The first good snow or rising of the creek will carry the stones down or away, and in my experience of these stacks that's part of the point: the impermanence of our place in the wild. Not intended as "look at me" at all. (Of course, others may have different reasons. I can't speak for everyone!)

This was a stack on Muir Pass this summer. I added my own rock and said my own prayer, which is odd for me as I'm not a religious person, but it felt right and it was meaningful to me to share that experience with other hikers who had come before me. I'm sure it's long buried in the marvelous snow the Sierra are receiving this year. It will be gone by spring.

No disrespect meant to your also-valid opinions. And of course, if you still want to knock them over, you're only doing what that next snow or rising stream would do anyway!

I guess this means I'm new-agey?!

[Edited to fix my sentence structure, because I'm OCD like that....]

[retired jerry]

"No disrespect meant to your also-valid opinions. And of course, if you still want to knock them over, you're only doing what that next snow or rising stream would do anyway!"

How out of place in this polarized world of yelling at each other

That's what I would say, us Adams' are very polite

[AAdamsPDX]

Thank you Jerry!

That's what I would say, us Adams' are very polite

And true, in my experience interacting with you here.

Too much yelling going on these days, on subjects both much more and much less important than this one. If we could all just do better at imagining life from someone else's perspective, the world would be a better place.

[Guy]

Very interesting...but a thread about cairns referencing a photographer with the name "Pitcairn" raises the irony level a bit!