I love signs. I have no idea why. I know that there are many hikers who don’t like signs littering up the landscape, and there’s certainly such a thing as too many signs. On the other hand, when you’ve been lost for an entire day and you finally come across a sign that points you in the right direction, you literally hug that sign. And ask it what it’s doing for dinner later.
Of all the signs I love, though, the signs I love most are warning signs. Sure, directional signs are nice. They tell you where you are and where you’re going. But warning signs tell you about the things that will kill you while you’re on your way there, which is pretty exciting. Some of them are helpful, some of them are terrifying, some of them are hilarious. And some of them are all three.
Below are my favorite warning signs I’ve come across while hiking, with explanatory notes. At this point it feels like the way to end this intro thematically would be to do it by issuing a comical warning, but “WARNING: POSSIBLE HILARITY AHEAD” is dorkier than I’d like, and “WARNING: LIABILITY-RELATED HUMOR AHEAD” seems like it would make everyone except insurance adjusters stop reading. So I’m going to just launch right into it with:
Lassen Volcanic National Park
Some of these signs are favorites not just due to the signs themselves, but the circumstances under which I saw them. As you might be able to tell from the photo, I night hiked through Lassen. I saw this sign as I was leaving the Park, and here’s the thing: I didn’t recall being on any boardwalks
the entire time I was in the Park. Which is terrifying. Was I supposed to be on boardwalks? Had I been off-trail, unknowingly wandering around a volcanic death trap? Maybe the PCT part of the park didn’t involve any boardwalks? Who knows? Ideally, warning signs happen
before the danger, and I probably missed the one on the other end in the dark. But there’s something very odd about the unnecessary fear that hits you
after you unwittingly survive something. Like when you find out the next day that just after you left the bar, karaoke started.
Homicidal Trees (All Over The Place)
When I was hiking through Colorado, one of my partners had what seemed like an unreasonable fear of trees. And then we started seeing warning signs about trees, and he used them to justify his paranoia. But while I think it’s a good idea to be aware that pretty much everything in nature generally is trying to kill me, the warning signs I often see in this regard have to do with specific trees. I mean, how many times does it have to kill to be called a “Tree of Death”? When I see a specific tree marked as a Killer Tree, I move past it quickly as if it was going to grab me (I really do), but even when I do get past
that tree, I AM STILL SURROUNDED BY TREES. Which, honestly, is the truly terrifying thing if you let it be terrifying -- people really
do get killed by trees, but unlike the statistical unlikelihood of even
seeing mountain lions or grizzlies or wolves, I am surrounded by trees ALL THE TIME. And I also feel like they have good reasons to hate us.
PCT, Day 1
If you don’t speak Spanish, this sign roughly translates as “don’t expose your life to the elements -- it’s not worth it.” Admittedly this sign is really directed at people coming across the border, but it’s still pretty depressing to have a sign tell you, on day one, that the thing you’re planning on doing for the next five months isn’t worth it.
But this sign does get across the valuable message that EVERYTHING IN THE DESERT IS TRYING TO KILL YOU. EVERYTHING. And against all expectations, you might even drown. How weird would that be? But I think if we’re honest what we really need to worry about is the guy who shot the crap out of that sign.
The Grand Canyon
Have I mentioned that EVERYTHING IN THE DESERT IS TRYING TO KILL YOU? I love everything about this sign. How sunburned the guy got despite having a shirt. The realistic splashy vomiting. The cargo pockets on his jean shorts. This guy looks absolutely miserable, and the joke here is that he hasn’t even started down yet. The only way I could like this better is if there were a couple of Clif Bars sticking out of his pack and the sign was sponsored by Lara Bars.
Tuckerman Ravine
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| A sign so big it takes three photos to capture it all. |
While there’s definitely something to be said for realistic splashy vomiting, I love it when someone manages to make a stick figure look terrified. The bottom panel of the ice fall warning sign near Pinkham Notch Visitors Center is fantastic. Stick figures running for their little stick figure lives, about to be crushed by giant ice boulders. I walked past this sign in August and it gave me the heebie jeebies. Then it made me laugh. Then it gave me the heebie jeebies again.
Jefferson Rock
A stick figure warning sign done wrong. I like this sign because I enjoy seeing signs with very specific weirdly-shaped objects on them, because it’s super obvious that it’s a custom job and that a photo eventually had to be sent. “Yeah. Jefferson Rock. Well, it's like a rock, but it’s not on the ground. It’s resting on these four pillar things. If you have clip art of a dog silhouette you could just use that and cut the head and tail off. You know what? That sounds awful. I better send a photo.”
The problem with this sign is that it’s not scary. That stick figure honestly looks like he’s having fun. The only way you could make that look more fun to me is if you added sound effects.
Explosives (Way More Places Than I'm Confortable With)
Usually found either where they use howitzers for avalanche control or where the 10th Mountain Division used to train. The idea that there may be unexploded military shells lying around is frightening, but the reason I like this sign is that it begs the question: is anyone who is dumb enough to want to touch unexploded shells smart enough to pay attention to warning signs?
In any case, I feel like the directions on this sign should read,
“If you find an unexploded shell or explosive:
1.
Get the hell out of there.”
Mount San Jacinto State Park
This isn’t really a warning sign, but it filled me with a vague sense of existential dread that increased to a mild panic, and I spent the next couple of miles with my brain spinning trying to figure out what I was responsible for knowing.
“I don’t know what it is. Is it math? Is there math involved? I’m terrible at math. Maybe it’s not math. Do I have to know how to navigate? Start a fire without a lighter? Fight mountain lions? Treat hypothermia? Is it avalanche safety? Holy crap, it’s avalanche safety, isn’t it? MY GOD SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT I’M RESPONSIBLE FOR KNOWING.”
The point here is probably that it’s pretty easy to make me freak out.
Plague Warning, Idyllwild, California
As with the explosives sign: who the hell is touching dead animals? Why would you have to tell people not to do that? But let’s put that to the side for a minute while we mull over the fact that The Plague is still a thing. Not like when you’re feeling cruddy from being sick and tell everyone, “ugh, I have the plague.” The actual Plague. That killed 60% of Europe. I guess I always thought the Plague just died out somehow, but it turns out that the Plague is a lot like the band Sugar Ray -- you think it’s something horrible from the past that disappeared forever, but really it’s quietly humming “Someday” to itself and plotting a comeback.
Yellowstone Warning Signs
Let’s start by acknowledging that holy crap Yellowstone is dangerous. There are so many things that can kill you in Yellowstone that it’s pretty amazing they just let people walk around unchaperoned. In the backcountry, there really aren’t a lot of warning signs or boardwalks or roped off areas. You’re free to be as stupid as you want to be. The front country, on the other hand? Warning signs everywhere about all sorts of things, although to be honest the one they really need is about how that bag of M&Ms costs four bucks.
But the signs they
do have are terrific. Look at that guy being tossed around by a buffalo! It hit him so hard you can’t even figure out where the selfie stick went. That dude is going to land three signs over on the one about not stringing a clothesline (Because of elk potentially rampaging through the campground)(Seriously). And this sign is in a
bathroom, where you think you’d be safe from that sort of thing. But if you’re thinking that, WHAT PART OF “UNPREDICTABLE” DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?
And it’s not just the animals. If you don’t stay on the boardwalk in the Upper Geyser Basin, the ground will apparently swallow you up and burn you alive, traumatizing your sister as your blissfully unaware dad continues strolling down the boardwalk lost in admiration for his Ted Baker London Bengal Leather Satchel. And while most of the time it's fun to traumatize your sister, in this case IT IS DEFINITELY NOT WORTH IT, BARRY.
With thanks to Heather Anderson and Daniel Wilkerson!
As noted above, I love signs. You can look at sign slideshows I put together from the PCT HERE and HERE. I also have slideshows of signs from the CDT and the Appalachian Trail. Or you can just check out everything on the YouTube Channel via the link below. Enjoy!
