More graffiti

Posted by Ken Campbell August 21, 2009 1 Comment 857 views

I have heard that, if you know where to look, you can still spot some of the blazes cut by the Press Party as they made their way through the Olympics a century ago. Apparently they are quite high off the ground, due to the deep snow cover when they were cut, thus difficult to find. I’ve looked but I’ve never spotted any.

There are plenty of others, however. Deep cuts in the bark of giant fir and spruce, painted markings and carved dates, proof of some memorable event from times past. Which has now been entirely and utterly forgotten.
The large, rectangular cuts are National Forest and National Park trail signs. Aggressive, dominating. They use little red metal tabs now, hammered into the trailside trees about 20 feet up. They left much bigger marks, back in the day.
The paint is usually official graffiti as well, survey parties and study groups. Hard to know what their messages are, without an understanding of the codes. The carvings are most often private affairs – Kilroy was here – and it is entertaining and a little bit awesome to find, and to run my fingers across, the older dates. I’ve come upon some from the 1940’s; I keep looking for the ones that are older yet.
There is art here.

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