'Tagging' up Redington

[TDawg]

Just thought I'd throw it out there...

I was up on Mt. Redington in Maine earlier today (9/2) and some idiot had spray painted hot pink blazes on trees/rocks and directional arrows up the already VERY obvious herdpath from the old skidder road near it's col with S. Crocker to the summit. I was coming from S. Crocker so it started on that herdpath. He did branch off the herd path and do some of his own bushwacking, leaving the pink blazes in his path and reconnected with the path coming from the Caribou Valley side.

Then to top it off signed his name "Chuck 9/1/06" on a rock at the top. Some people....

Three within 20 feet

Chuck leaving his mark at the summit

 

[amstony]

Wow, thats awful and the kind of incident that makes it bad for us all! What was this guy, "Chuck", thinking.............?

 

[darren]

Chuck should be shot. Actually, public hangings would be a nice deterent for idiotic behavior like that. The US could really learn some lessons from Thailand...

Obviously, the view from Reddington is nothing to write home about and the coolest thing about hiking it is the "I wonder if this is the way" factor. Blazing it is stupid (see the ADK thread...), signing your name is just plain criminal.

- darren

 

[funkyfreddy]

Chuck should be shot. Actually, public hangings would be a nice deterent for idiotic behavior like that. The US could really learn some lessons from Thailand...- darren

I agree...... morons like this should get a beating at the very least.... It's scarey that clueless imbeciles like this are "peak bagging" - people with no concern, appreciation, or consideration for the environment whatsoever....

 

[cantdog]

Gee, if you were there just one day earlier, you might have gotten the opportunity to confront him.

 

[carole]

I find this very interesting because in my local playground, the Belknap Range (NH), I have in the past year found two different routes that have had the same done to them...hot pink spray paint!! The ‘blazes’ are so close you could see a line of them and they almost glow. One route was a very clear path and the other was a bushwhack.

The first one, the clear path, was done several months ago and I spent quite a bit of time removing what I could. The paint was on red pines (which you could just pull off the affected puzzle-piece-like bark), white birch (scraped off easy), lichen on rocks (removed), dead stumps (??) and other hardwood trees (the hardest to remove). I returned to the route some weeks later to see that it was done again…this time higher up and larger sprays!!

When I came across it on the bushwhack I was heartbroken. What could I do there was so much paint??

The good news is that the paint is not good quality and I recently saw that the sun and weather has helped diminish the glow on the 'clear path' to the point that it isn’t very obvious anymore. I haven’t been back to the ‘bushwhack’ yet, but am hoping for the same results.

Could there be more then one ‘ignorant’ hiker out there with pink spray paint?

 

[TDawg]

Blazing it is stupid (see the ADK thread...), signing your name is just plain criminal.
- darren

Agreed. Seeing seeing this made me think of the 'Couchie' ADK thread, and what a huge uprising that caused. And true the view is nothing to write home about, in fact I didn't even have one because early morning (8:15am) clouds were still hanging around. And the summit is already, and may be furthur tarnished by development, but vandalism like that anywhere isn't ethical. I don't care if it's your local town forest, the side of a building, or on top of a 4k foot mountain.

By the way, Redington was day four of a 4 day, 3 night backpack from ME Rt. 4 to Rt. 27. Weather was great and every day was awesome in it's own way. Me and one other kid managed 8, 4k ft. peaks, while the others skipped Redington and ended with 7 along that stretch. I'll try for a TR soon but I'll be busy these next few days.

 

[mavs00]

Notify authorities involved RIGHT AWAY, and stay on them. There may ultimately be nothing they can do, but they have means available to them that we do not.

MAKE A BIG DEAL ABOUT IT because it is one. These "online" communities are more powerful then you think. Without saying to much, I'm pretty comfortable that there will soon be some positive events that will demonstrate just how much so. FIND CHUCK and make him stop, particularly if he making it his mission to "tag" summits {using legal means of course}. Keep your eyes open.

THIS CRAP IS UNACCEPTABLE, treat it as such. I've never even been to Reddington, probably never will either (too far), but those pictures of its "tagging" turn my stomach and I find my anger rising all over.

 

[TDawg]

I agree with you totally Mavs.

And I would alert authoities if this was National Forest land or other public land like Adirondack Park. But Redington, to my knowledge (someone correct me if I'm wrong), is private land owned by a wind power company. So who would be the proper authority in this case, the power company? Screw them, they could probably care less anyway.

Redington and it's long ridge over to Black Knubble, is the center of the windmill power discussion in western Maine you may have heard about or seen on this board.

 

[dms]

What a selfish thing to do, ruin other folks experiences just for your own pleasure. It saddens me to think of the further degradation of this mountain. When I first hiked it over 20 years ago, when it was a true bushwack, the CVR was gated at the AT crossing. The top had no views, but also there was no trash and no tower. The register was one of Dennis C.'s glass bottles. Ah, the good old days.

 

[audrey]

TDawg,

if the summit of Redington is indeed owned by the same group (Harley Lee/Endless Energy) that want to put up the windmills, I'd certainly go ahead and let him know. No harm in reinforcing with him how much we love the area and don't want to see it degraded further. It could be closed to us on a whim, so I'd also show some respect.

 

[Doc McPeak]

Hey TDawg,
I missed you by a couple of hours yesterday! I guess we met at the Sugarloaf junction. I put 2 and 2 together as I was heading up to the summit when you mentioned doing Marcy and Haystack with your father the year before.

The pink blazing is as bad as you say, totally selfish and unnecessary. Did it start over on South Crocker? I went up from the CVR, then over to the Crockers. Since the blazes start near the summit on that route I wasn't sure if it was from the tower people? Then after reading your entry, and finding his signature a few minutes later I feared the worst. That beautiful path to the col is littered with Dumbf*ck Chuck's Pink Barbie Lipstick on rocks, moss, trees and stumps. I was so sick of it by the col I veered right on the logging road away from the ribbons and took a route on up the ridge toward the CVR side. Awesome open woods for the most part, with a few tight sections of true bushwhacking.

What a great few days in Maine, huh!?

 

[TDawg]

Doc,

The blazes start at the beginning of the second herd path coming from S. Crocker. The one that begins climbing to the Redington summit from the skidder trail on the northern side of the col, after crossing the large clearing and hiking up the skidder path for a ways. There are no pink blazes on any part of S. Crocker thank goodness, just alot of orange flagging.

Yes, it was a great 4 days in the mountains, and yes that was me at the Sugarloaf side trail with my sister and her friends. It was nice to meet you and I see you were able to steer clear from any black bears and bow hunters on the way down to CVR. How was the bushwacking through there anyway?

I broke camp that morning at 6:15 from Crocker Cirque and made the Redington summit just before 8, didn't stay long on top because we were socked in and a cold wind was blowing, just missed ya.

I put two and two together when I saw a post from Mad Townie saying he was supposed to meet DocMcPeak, who was camping in your car on CVR. I also met another VFTT member on the summit of The Horn on Wednesday, 'whans'. Amazing how many hikers are familiar with this board.

 

[Paradox]

I find Chuck's actions deplorable and pathetic, and worthy of a severe and protracted public mocking (language removed as its out of line, even taking in consideration the offense of her son...Peakbagr).
Looking ahead, when people describe a color as "hot", it is often that a fluorescent dye is used for the visual effect. These colorants have very poor colorfastness, particularly in sunlight. A number of years ago my son who was three at the time, cut his head on the corner of table of my tablesaw. I painted the corners and other sharp edges with a "Hot" pink paint. The color and visual effect lasted only about three years in my basement where it is dark most of the time.

 

[Peakbagr]

Isn't there a trailhead nearby where "Chuck" might have signed in with his last name, addy and phone number?

 

[Kevin Rooney]

Isn't there a trailhead nearby where "Chuck" might have signed in with his last name, addy and phone number?

Any chance we skip the public shaming this time around? I dislike the act as well, but think shaming demeans everyone involved.

As a culture, we gave up the stocks, scarlet "A"s and similiar practices some time ago. This kind of shaming activity brings out the worst kinds of behavior in the VFFT community.

 

[Mark Driscoll]

Paradox is right; the hot pink paint was most likely “marking” paint which is designed to breakdown relatively quickly in the sun. If this was not so think of how many paint marks there would be on streets and sidewalks from all the work that is done. On the bad side a lot of the paint is most likely in the shade most of the time.

I do not think Chuck was thinking about this when he purchased his paint, from what he did I do not believe he think much at all.

Mark

 

[Peakbagr]

Sorry, but there isn't a legal recourse. That means letting it go (probably not a great learning experience with a sensitive soul like "Chuck"), or resort to the earned scorn of his peers.

 

[Kevin Rooney]

Sorry, but there isn't a legal recourse. That means letting it go (probably not a great learning experience with a sensitive soul like "Chuck"), or resort to the earned scorn of his peers.

What do you think the odds are that "Chuck" reads VFFT? Even if he did, none of us are investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury. Vigilante 'justice' is never justice - it's just another act as inappropriate as the one it attempts to correct.

 

[elhefe007a]

Any chance we skip the public shaming this time around?

These people need to be exposed, sending a clear message that the hiking community isn't going to sit down and ingore these rediculous actions by morons with spraypaint and machete's.

Couchsachraga angered me beyond belief when I saw it. Redington is one of the few 4k peaks in ME I have yet to get, and I'm bent already.