Hiker disgusted by 'despicable' scene witnessed on popular hiking trail: 'Why do people do things like this?'

A hiker in Boulder, Colorado, was saddened and angered after what should've been a pleasant excursion in Green Mountain West Ridge turned into a frustrating display of inconsiderate behavior. They shared photos of the rocks on trails to the r/Boulder subreddit, revealing several instances of vandalism by other visitors.

The six painted messages and drawings on the rocks the hiker captured included "Woke," "The goat," and "Wow!" 

A fellow hiker backed up the OP and claimed it was even worse than it looked: "I just came down from the summit to post this. These pics don't do it justice. S*** graffiti on every rock up there. Real eyesore."

As that hiker mentioned, putting graffiti and paint on rocks ruins the natural beauty of the features and frustrates hikers looking to enjoy nature. It can disrupt the relaxing benefits of going outdoors while robbing future generations of pristine views of nature. It also can lead to a lengthy clean-up for workers, like a four-and-a-half hour cleanup for park rangers after an apparent gender reveal at Utah's Snow Canyon State Park.

Unfortunately, marking and vandalizing rocks is a national problem, with other visitors defacing legally protected petroglyphs, using rocks as a chance to flash amateur artwork, and scuffing up ancient pictographs. It all flies in the face of the Leave No Trace principle, which guides hikers in leaving nature just as you found it.

A poster identifying as an Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) worker in Boulder said that they'd look into getting the situation cleaned up while providing a link to report instances of vandalism on OSMP land. They added that "photos are awesome, and if you're able to also drop a pin, that is super helpful!"

A Redditor followed up and said they saw crews making progress on the affected areas. They concluded by writing, "Props to the folks restoring the natural beauty and WTF to the degenerates that did this!"

Even though this story seems to have somewhat of a happy ending, Redditors were disturbed by the vandalism, with a user calling it "despicable."

Another commenter wrote: "This makes me so upset. Why do people do things like this?"

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A user evoked a sign from the Forbidden City: "A single act of carelessness leads to the eternal loss of beauty."

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