The Serious Problem With Stone Stacking Pebble Piling Gravel Gathering Hoodoos

I saw that which you see above on Facebook via a posting by Miss Mildred's paternal parental unit, who asked that which you see at the top...

 "Are you a stone picker? A pebble piler? A gravel gatherer? Yeah, it's fun, but it also can leave a mark".

I had zero idea that that which I have long referred to as "Hoodoos" was any sort of problem.

Years ago, back when I lived in the DFW zone of Texas, I regularly hiked the Tandy Hills, located a couple miles west of the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth.

After a few years of hiking the Tandy Hills the phenomenon I took to referring to as being "Hoodoos" began to appear at multiple locations along the trails which traverse the hills.

In all those years I never saw anyone actually building one of the Hoodoos. Some of those rock pile structures were quite elaborate feats of engineering and balancing, and likely took a bit of time to construct.

And yet I never caught anyone in the act of piling rocks into a tower.

A few months ago I was surprised to see a Hoodoo alongside the Circle Trail in the Wichita Bluff Nature Area. Since that Hoodoo first appeared it has gone through multiple iterations, with the most recent being a complex of six Hoodoos. I have only seen Hoodoos at that one location on the Circle Trail.

Above is that six Hoodoo formation mentioned in the previous paragraph. I really do not see how this particular Hoodoo iteration causes any sort of problem.

Seeing this post from Miss Mildred's paternal parental unit got me remembering the first time I came across Hoodoos. Years ago, with my favorite nephews, Christopher and Jeremy. We all lived in Washington at that point in time. Christopher and Jeremy now live in Arizona.

The above is a photo of that first Hoodoo encounter I mentioned in the previous paragraph. That is Jeremy on the left, Christopher on the right. That big mountain in the background is Mount Shuksan. To the right, in the direction Christopher is looking, is the Mount Baker volcano.

A line of Hoodoos is behind the boys.

I had no idea, til reading so on Facebook, that piling rocks in Hoodoo type formations was any sort of bad thing.

I suppose it all depends on the location of the rock piling.

Probably not so okay in any sort of actual scenic wonder, but probably totally okay in a location like the Wichita Bluff Nature Area, even though the Hoodoos there are not natural...