Colored lights on skyline?

[phamus1]

Hi, longtime lurker here - my curiosity has motivated me to finally post. What's up with the lights on the mountain? As if someone placed individual christmas lights or glowsticks up there. Saw a few above the Ramon trailhead several days ago (not on skyline), then noticed some more last night that looked like they were on the mid or upper portion of skyline. Looks pretty neat. I wonder who's gonna pick them up?

[Hikin_Jim]

Florian went up there. I think they're solar powered lights someone put up there just for fun. Presumably the same person will pick them up.

HJ

[cynthia23]

I hope so. Not to be a Grinch, but I'm actually not all that thrilled by people who think it's cute to 'decorate' the wilderness with colored lights or Christmas ornaments. I wish they would stick to their front yards. Like 'decorative' rock cairns and the like, it emboldens other people to leave actual graffiti, because it starts to seem like 'an empty space which people can do stuff to' rather than untouched wilderness. There is in fact now much more graffiti on Skyline then there used to be--taggers and the like.
And even if decorative stuff didn't encourage graffiti, the reason I like wilderness areas is because they're, you know, undecorated?

[Florian]

I'm surprised the lights are still there. I would have thought people would have climbed up and removed at least some of them by now. (Just to be clear... I did not place the lights.)

Phamus, they are little solar powered LED lights pointed toward the downtown area. They are attached to rocks with double sided tape. They should eventually fall off and become just some more trash.

-Florian

[halhiker]

cynthia23 wrote:
"Not to be a Grinch, but I'm actually not all that thrilled by people who think it's cute to 'decorate' the wilderness with colored lights or Christmas ornaments. I wish they would stick to their front yards."

I don't think most of the Skyline is actually considered wilderness. At least most if it below 5000 ft. Personally, I think it's cool. Skyline lost its wilderness feel years ago. It might as well be Hwy. 111 now.

[Screerider]

cynthia23 wrote:
"Not to be a Grinch, but I'm actually not all that thrilled by people who think it's cute to 'decorate' the wilderness with colored lights or Christmas ornaments. I wish they would stick to their front yards."

I don't think most of the Skyline is actually considered wilderness. At least most if it below 5000 ft. Personally, I think it's cool. Skyline lost its wilderness feel years ago. It might as well be Hwy. 111 now.

Ouch! The light on top is bad enough. I wish I had a switch for that.

[Florian]

Like 'decorative' rock cairns and the like, it emboldens other people to leave actual graffiti, because it starts to seem like 'an empty space which people can do stuff to' rather than untouched wilderness.

Never thought about it that way, but i'm sure you're right... 'an empty space which people can do stuff to'. I think this is also the mentality of many offroad dirt bike riders. Big open desert just there for me to ride all over.

-Florian

[cynthia23]

Well, I take your point Hal--Skyline certainly isn't untouched 'wilderness' (anymore) the way, I dunno, the depths of Patagonia or Alaska are. But it's still primarily a natural, undeveloped space, pretty much the way it's been for the last thousand years or so, and I'd like to see it stop getting more and more degraded and beat-up. It's worth protecting.

Unfortunately, given the way it's getting so trashed, and the large number of people on it, IMHO the only solution is for it to be taken over by some guvmint agency or other and access controlled and limited. It's too bad, but that's 'the tragedy of the commons'. ('the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and according to self-interest.") As you say, Florian, some people see wild places just as big empty extensions of their backyard.

[bluerail]

how much into the wilderness do you expect to get on a 10 mile trail that goes from a museum to a bar? thats about as urban as you can get.

[cynthia23]

Well, there's a museum in Anchorage, and a bar in Fairbanks. Does that mean the area in between isn't wilderness? There's a museum in Idyllwild, too; does that mean the Devil's Slide isn't 'wilderness'?

Skyline is part of the Santa Rosa San Jacinto National Monument, so apparently Congress thinks it's wilderness-y enough to protect.

Skyline has the current misfortune of not being under the direct jurisdiction of a state or federal agency. If the lower two thirds of the trail were part of, let's say, the state park, with permits required and rangers patrolling, we all know that no one would dare to do, or be allowed to do, the things that are currently happening: dozens of destructive and erosion-creating personal shortcuts, 'decorating' it with lights and Christmas ornaments, 'improving it' with dozens of rock cairns and spray-painted directions, or blatantly defacing it with gang graffiti, toilet paper, and trash.

Eight years ago, and a thousands of hikers ago, Skyline's 'outlaw' status was fun, but now it's just destroying it.