So this popped up...
https://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.c ... cked-down/
"NORTH ELBA — Eleven of 12 cairns atop Wright Peak were deliberately knocked down on Monday.....
They are built by professional trail crews and summit stewards and are designated by state Department of Environmental Conservation land managers for their specific spots, according to Kayla White, Adirondack Mountain Club’s Stewardship Director...
It’s unknown who knocked the structures over, and White said it’s probably impossible to know for sure what the motivation was — but it likely was one of two things: mischief or a misinformed and false belief that the cairns were unlawful alterations to the natural environment. White said it’s disappointing that someone caused such extensive damage possibly based on either malintent or misinformation....
If someone is unsure of whether a rock structure in the wild is permitted, they should reach out to ADK or the DEC, who will be able to assess that with certainty and, if it is unlawful, remove it responsibly. White added that all of ADK’s work above treeline is discussed with and pre-approved by the DEC."
Well...'NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) regulations that require archaeologists to determine whether cairns or stone mounds that are in the way of planned construction are historic or prehistoric.'...good luck with archaeologists agreement.
' Butler referred to a large stone cairn in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which the Reverend John Sergeant saw with an Indian guide in 1734 (Butler,
1946: 3). He described the cairn as being “two cart loads” in size, and as Indians passed by the spot they would “throw astone to it.” Ezra Stiles, the future president of Yale, described the same cairn in 1762 and drew a sketch of it. Butler claimed that “Monument Mountain was destroyed in the 1840s,” but undoubtedly she was referring to the cairn, which according to some sources was “heavily vandalized” (Brown, 1958: 46-47).
The present cairn (FIGURE 1) is supposedly a replacement, but probably built on a core of stones of the original mound. '
In other words that historic view is considered garbage. Heres the original 'new 'cairn BTW before it is now rubble.....
Cairn.jpg