Tibetan prayer flags on summits -- yay or nay?

blacknblue said:

state-owned property are allowed (at least tacitly so)? What would the ACLU do if someone put a John 3:16 banner up there? Or a copy of the Shema?

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fwiw: Unless the State put them there, or the State were inconsistent or discriminatory in what they took down (if, say, they were vigilant about taking down scripture banners, but ignored the prayer flags), I doubt the ACLU would get involved.

I think prayer flags are beautiful, but I don't think they would be left behind on summits, trails, or camp sites.

LNT.

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griffin said:

I think prayer flags are beautiful...
LNT.

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My neighbors thought mine were so beautiful that some of their kids hopped my fence and cut them down. It was great because our town detective classified the offense as some kind of religious persecution crime!
Anyway...I am saving my new ones for my next attempt on Chomolugma.
I think they might be under appreciated here in New England.

I've only come across them as memorials, typically where there was a fatality, in which case I leave 'em be. Can't imagine why anyone would just put 'em on a summit or at a view for no apparent reason.

Whenever I see them I'm reminded of my Mom who use to hang out the laundry to dry. It seems now a days people look down on those who still do so. It's even banned in some communities. Such a shame...

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Some of us still hang our laundry outside -- proudly so! -- and use the clothes dryer as a last resort... although probably not this week in The State of Emergency (CA) 'cuz it'd be covered in ash.

Now about those prayer flags... while they never bent me outa shape, LNT is what I'm thinking.

I would remove them if I found them hanging with noone around them. This doesn't mean that I don't appreciate them. It's just not right to leave them at a summit in America, same goes for a scripture banner left in Tabet or Pakistan, etc. If somone used them to pray at that place, that's wonderful, but then they should take the flags with them, just like anything else.

I heard that these flags were hung over a dead moose in the Ice Gulch. I'd just leave them in that case because it's a memorial, but not at a spot where someone just stopped to pray.

I doubt those who left them were actually practioners of that religion (Buddist?). If they weren't used by a Buddist, then they are just pretty little pieces of cloth.

happy trails

Maddy said:

...I think they might be under appreciated here in New England.

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Of course they are under-appreciated here in New England. They are as under-appreciated as a Bible in Tibet.

Edit: oops...looks like forestgnome and I had a similar thought at the same time (maybe I'm a moose-whisperer in training? )

forestgnome said:

I heard that these flags were hung over a dead moose in the Ice Gulch. I'd just leave them in that case because it's a memorial, but not at a spot where someone just stopped to pray.

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A memorial quickly turns into trash as well. Some poor slob died while hiking up Peekamoose in the Catskills. His family put up plastic wreathes and flowers at the site of where he died. By the time I got up there sometime later, the plastic flowers had blown all over. I felt bad that the guy died and for his family and stuff but I packed the plastic flowers out. Too bad -- it was crap that shouldn't have been there. Had it been real, formerly living flowers left as a memorial I would have left them. But like plastic bottles I find lying around the woods, I'll also pack out plastic flowers and dispose of them in the appropriate place (Pit Toilet at the Trail Head ----- No! Just Kidding!!)

-Dr. Wu

There is prayer flags on the start of the bare rock of the Jay Range in NY. It seems like half the people I see up there think that is the summit, it shows that as the summit on some maps but if you can throw a rock and hit something higher your not on the summit. The flags seem to be like a summit sign to some. There is also a cross over a small grave/ash spot about a .5 mile more down the ridge near the summit. I don't know if they go together. You could finish the ADK100 on Jay but I don't think anyone who has is dumb enough to think that is the summit. I was going to take them down but thought of the resting place and said not till I know to myself. They were probably placed in winter because they are high up on thinner trees that I don't think could support a person. That season doesn't go well with placing a grave site though.

I took mine to Rainier, set them up on our tent at Muir in hopes of our safe return. Might have seemed foolish to some, but it felt right to me.

It's important to have customs and rituals, I think, as long as they aren't harmful. Some people shake hands with everyone in their group when they reach the summit. Other's bring cookies to share, or candy. I never thought I was much of a sentimental sort that way until I went to Africa. In my 50+ years I had never traveled out of the country before and as we left home my mother gave me a small fir scented pillow that I had given her years before. (It had a lady slipper on it, and one of our customs growing up had been to search the spring woods near our home to count how many lady slippers had blossomed.) She said that if I was feeling homesick, or afraid, or uncomfortable for any reason, that I could look at it, smell it's familiar scent, and remember both her thinking good thoughts of me as I journied as well and the greater Spiritual Love that keeps us safe. When I arrived at the summit of Kilimanjaro, I removed the tiny pillow from my pack, opened it up, and let it's contents (only a few spoonfuls worth of needles) spill out as I said something like, "From the Hills of New Hampshire to the Hills of Africa. One world. Let there be Peace on Earth." I don't know where the words came from, or the idea to say something, as I hadn't been thinking of doing anything like that. I'll never forget the emotion and power of the moment. I'm different and better for it.

English Lesson

dr_wu002 said:

A memorial quickly turns into trash as well. Some poor slob died while hiking up Peekamoose in the Catskills. His family put up plastic wreathes and flowers at the site of where he died. By the time I got up there sometime later, the plastic flowers had blown all over. I felt bad that the guy died and for his family and stuff but I packed the plastic flowers out.

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Before anyone gets upset, I guess I need to add a disclaimer. The phrase "poor slob" means "unfortunate ordinary person" (you can look it up!) and was not in any way intended as an insult to him or his family.

FWIW, I struggled with the decision to take that stuff out. On one hand, it was placed there by the guy's elderly parents whom I am sure were upset. On the other hand, the wreath was disintegrating and littering the forest with plastic flowers. It would've been a no brainer if they were real -- leave 'em. But since they were plastic and blowing into the woods in all directions I decided to take them rather than hoping his parents would come back and clean them up. I think I made the right call.

-Dr. Wu

dr_wu002 said:

Before anyone gets upset, I guess I need to add a disclaimer. The phrase "poor slob" means "unfortunate ordinary person" (you can look it up!) and was not in any way intended as an insult to him or his family.

FWIW, I struggled with the decision to take that stuff out. On one hand, it was placed there by the guy's elderly parents whom I am sure were upset. On the other hand, the wreath was disintegrating and littering the forest with plastic flowers. It would've been a no brainer if they were real -- leave 'em. But since they were plastic and blowing into the woods in all directions I decided to take them rather than hoping his parents would come back and clean them up. I think I made the right call.

-Dr. Wu

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Speaking of the Catskills and poor slobs, there are cremation remains, (labeled and named), in a small container, hidden under a tree, near a Cat summit. The discoverer decided to leave them there.

Tom Rankin said:

Speaking of the Catskills and poor slobs, there are cremation remains, (labeled and named), in a small container, hidden under a tree, near a Cat summit. The discoverer decided to leave them there.

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Like I said, it was a judgment call and not necessarily based on an airtight logical argument. I'd leave the urn. My rational, if flimsy, would be that a container to hold someone's ashes is well, contained, and probably not corrosive during the short term (especially if it's clay) and will probably just become an historical artifact in a few decades. I realize that perhaps the plastic flowers wouldn't be eaten by any animals and, I wasn't aware of their chemical composition -- they could have been made from corn for all I know, nor am I a Chemist -- so I don't know what they would break down into. But I made what I thought was the correct decision based on the situation regardless of my lack of hard scientific data to back it up. I simply threw the flowers away and did not run a chemical analysis on them with the intention that if they were biodegradable I would take them back to the location and return them to where I found them.

I imagine the ashes at some point will make a half way decent fertilizer. Then again, I'm no chemist or biologist.

-Dr. Wu

Prayer flags for New England's mountains - Nah
Prayer flags for New England's interstate highways - Oh yah

Even cemeteries clean up memorials, sometimes long before they start to deteriorate. Many only allow real flowers as a means to enforce a short timespan for their display. In the backcountry, there's no designated groundskeeper to clean up afterward, so if left unattended, yes, responsible people (like Wu in his example) should, in my opinion, feel free to clean them up.

dr_wu002 said:

... Too bad -- it was crap that shouldn't have been there. Had it been real, formerly living flowers left as a memorial I would have left them. But like plastic bottles I find lying around the woods, I'll also pack out plastic flowers and dispose of them in the appropriate place (Pit Toilet at the Trail Head ----- No! Just Kidding!!)

-Dr. Wu

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Whoa, that's COLD, Frank!! Holy Cow, no sentiment lost here!

Kevin Rooney said:

Whoa, that's COLD, Frank!! Holy Cow, no sentiment lost here!

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Well, see my second post on the subject if you'd like clarification. As I recall, it was somewhat of a cold day. Although, the sentiment wasn't. I remember standing around for a while deciding on what to do. On one hand it was some poor guy's memorial and on the other hand it was falling apart. Time to take it out.

I threw it away when I got home. Sorry, but if the people who put it up post here then they should have known better than to hang plastic flowers in the forest. But, judging from note and stuff, it seemed like it was put up by an upset family without much experience in the woods.

Edit: here's a photo taken by someone about a week after the fact. We left the wreath but cleaned up about 20 plastic flowers that were blowing around the woods.

-Dr. Wu

I have no problem with using them for a ceremony on the summit, but take them with you when you leave. If you don't, I will, and will dispose of them respectfully or put them somewhere more appropriate.

Tibetan prayer flags might be culturally and historically appropriate on Tibetan summits (even tho frowned upon by the ruling Chinese) and I'm not advocating the removal of the permanent crosses and religious statuary on summits in historically Catholic countries in Europe and Latin America. But I think they are not culturally, historically or politically appropriate as permanent fixtures on summits in the United States. If put up by federal, state or local government, it would be a clear violation of the First Amendment. If put up on public land by a private party, it would be the kind of case that someone wants to take to the Supreme Court every Christmas, Hanukkah, Saturnalia, etc. Certainly there is a symbolism in planting a flag on a summit that suggests conquest and domination, which I think goes beyond a Menora next to a creche in a public square, and if it is symbolic domination by someone's brand of religion, that is inconsistent with our First Amendment traditions and the secular values consciously and deliberately put into our constitution and law by the Founders, and protected by true patriots and civil libertarians since. The US is different in some ways which I think are worth preserving.

Besides which, I'd rather not see any human artifacts on a wilderness summit.

I doubt those who left them were actually practioners of that religion (Buddist?). If they weren't used by a Buddist, then they are just pretty little pieces of cloth.

happy trails [/QUOTE]

This is an interesting thread. The vast cultural diversity in this country is not dispayed for all to see, nor often do we want to see. Tibetean Buddhism is practiced by thousands of white westerners. Especially in Vermont and New York.
I'm not sure the flags are appropriate on a summit either. But they represent a more holistic relationship with the land, rather than domination. In Nepal, they are put on passes, not summits. They disintegrate, representing impermanance.
I don't go draping them on New England mountains, and I have never seen them on a New Hampshire summit. But I'm not surprised they were on Camel's Hump.
I think everybody's response to this thread has been appropriate.

What about...

the most obvious answer? that prayer flags are traditionally associated with the high mountains and thus don't seem as obstrusive as other other manmade objects in that "wilderness" context, as least not to a person of average, normal sensibilities...