Where’s Nico?

I mentioned before that Kristen and I have hit a couple dozen national parks together, and Nico is rapidly building up his collection of parks too. It’s cliche, but we often take a picture of the park sign near the entrance.

You can see from Nico’s face above, that he thinks it’s kind of a dumb idea, but I enjoy it. But park entrance signs are hardly the only signs you’ll encounter at national parks.  There are others that I can’t resist snapping pictures of.  I thought you guys may enjoy them as much as I did – they may make you laugh, and they may save your life!  This is a picture I took at Rocky Mountain National Park, but I’ve seen this sign at other parks as well:

Your mind can’t help but consider what led the rangers to feel the need to add the second, third and fourth items to this list.  This is kind of like the flight attendants showing you how to buckle and release your seat belt before a flight – it seems like common sense would have been enough here, but apparently not.  I should also mention, these are latrines – there’s no flushing here.  So the second item – warning people not to stand on the toilet – seems particularly significant.  You would not want to slip when you’re over an open latrine.

When we camped in Mesa Verde, there were some shower areas available.  The shower area had these signs:

For point of reference, the toilets are about ten feet from the shower.  I realize this is covering some of the same ground as the picture I posted above, but I particularly like the artistic decision to add wavy lines above the poop in the upper right of the first picture.  If the image is too small, here it is zoomed in a bit:

I’m not sure if the wavy lines represent the steamy nature of the wet, fresh poo, or if it’s a reflection of the odor.  But that’s what great art does – it leaves it to the viewer to come to their own interpretation.

I also like how the bottom sign not only says “Don’t poop here” in English, but includes six other languages to try to make sure they’re reaching as broad an audience as possible.

This next one is from Colorado National Monument.  It’s a beautiful mesa just outside of Grand Junction – we camped on top of the mesa earlier this summer and I highly recommend it!  Anyway, we were on a trail on the top of the 500-or-so foot high mesa, when on the edge, we saw this sign, just a couple feet from the rim:

I had to save this one for last.  If you’re feeling pretty adventurous when you visit the south rim of Grand Canyon National Park, there’s a pretty famous hike called Bright Angel Trail that takes you from the rim of the canyon down to the canyon floor.  It’s not for the unprepared.  My uncle does search-and-rescue at Bryce Canyon, and it’s amazing how many people there hike down into a canyon without factoring in their inability to hike back up – and that’s a much shallower canyon than the Grand Canyon.  To emphasize this challenge and hopefully avoid having to haul quite as many folks out, the park rangers have this sign for you just a few hundred yards into your descent – it’s not subtle:

I really don’t think any further explanation is necessary…

– Ken 4/12/2024