Because the Santa Monica Mountains and Angeles National Forest are both so close to this large urban area, surely we’ve all seen our fair share of graffiti on the trails – especially the more popular and easily accessible ones, but according to a story in the Fresno Bee, it’s becoming a problem even in National Parks.
You’d assume people who travel to National Parks have a greater respect for the natural state than others, but rangers found graffiti along the rocks of the popular Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park, as well as near a thousand year old pictograph in Sequoia National Park – which, to me, is pretty insane.
Thankfully, there are plenty of volunteer groups who routinely scour the forests to remove tags from rocks, but in some places, scenes like the picture above at the Devil’s Punchbowl are all-too-common. The Fresno Bee article calls for greater education, so visitors know the importance of keeping the area in as natural a state as possible, but something tells me the people who come to these places with markers or carving knives aren’t likely to drop by the interpretive visitors’ center in the first place.
