Mt. Peak Vandalism

Any time a man made structure is placed on Mt. Peak, it usually doesn't take long for it to be defaced or destroyed.

The first obvious instance of this was when a boy scout troop planted signs at intervals along the trail to the top. Each of these was mounted on a 4x4 post, had a hinged cedar cover, and underneath a plaque explaining the flora to be seen along that area of the path.

Almost immediately after these signs were placed, the cedar covers were ripped from their hinges and disappeared. Some of the plaques underneath were destroyed or went missing. And several of the signs were pulled out completely by their posts and thrown downhill on the side of the trail.

Recently a monument was placed at the top of Mt. Peak, commemorating a former regular hiker. It's a large, solid, wooden pillar, set in cement. It has an angled top, where a plaque was attached with a quote and the man's name. This monument lasted about one day intact: The plaque was shattered and removed, and the pillar cracked and gouged, probably in attempts to split it completely.

Recently, the stone sign at the north entrance to the Mt. Peak trail was defaced with a warning in spray paint for those of a certain race to keep out. The Parks Dept. has been unable to completely remove the lettering and restore the sign.

The oddity about the vandalism of the signs along the main path to the top, and of that of the monument at the top, is that why would vandals go to all the trouble to climb Mt. Peak just to destroy these things? Climbing that hill takes a little work, and you would have to pick a time when you wouldn't be seen by other hikers in order to wreck these things. Why go to all that effort?

Building is hard; destroying is easy:

Why would vandals, who don't like hard, but do like easy, do something relatively difficult by climbing Mt. Peak in order to wreak all this damage? Rather than run-of-the-mill vandalism, maybe the motive behind some of the actions is resentment of human alterations to the hill. Maybe not all of the damage is from a human agency.