Memorials a Problem in Wilderness Areas

Grieving Americans are violating U.S. Forest Service policy by erecting makeshift memorials and scattering ashes in national parks and wilderness areas.

With memorials popping up all over, officials say forest rangers must take on the added chore of removing them at the same time as they have to deal with an increasing number of visitors, The Denver Post reported Monday.

Some of the tributes are placed in hard-to-reach areas like the side of 14,000 ft. high Snowmass Mountain or a wilderness ridge line off Ptarmigan Peak.

If we allowed memorials, there would be memorials all over the mountains, says John Busto, a spokesman for the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest west of Denver. Memorials are just not part of the ecosystem.

Forest rangers maintain that using public land to mark private grief defeats the purpose of wilderness.

If someone truly loved the woods, respected the woods, the last thing they’d want to see there is a memorial, says Rich Doak of the 600,000-acre White River National Forest.

U.S. Forest Service policy prohibits memorials, ash-scattering and burials.