Stone Stacks Litter Pristine Trails. A Grumpy Hiker Is Kicking Back.
'Look at this!' he said on a recent hike, adding an expletive. 'What I'll do now is destroy the lot of them.'
Mr. Cox, who lives near the Mam Tor hiking trail some 20 miles southeast of Manchester, is not sowing destruction for the sake of it. He wants the hikers who visit one of England's most scenic trails to stop stacking rocks there, a practice that he and other conservationists argue is harmful to the environment.
He has found an inventive way to share his message: Mr. Cox, 57, in May prompted a vigorous debate by posting a video of himself grumpily kicking down a series of rock stacks. The stones had been taken from an ancient wall, he railed, not only disrupting the area's habitat but degrading a centuries-old structure.
Stone stacks, also known as cairns, have long been used to mark burial sites or as navigation aids on remote hiking trails. Park authorities in many places maintain them to help hikers. But authorities and wilderness lovers like Mr. Cox who follow ethical rules for hiking have a message for visitors: leave the rocks alone.
New stone stacks, piled up by hikers and often snapped for social media, have become a worrying sight for researchers who say they damage the environment around trails the world over. Stone stacks have been spotted everywhere, from trails in Yosemite to the beaches of Tenerife.
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