Located as the Wapack trail is, within an hours drive of Boston, there were lots of other hikers even on the lesser-known mountain. There was also lots of evidence (in a good way) of other hikers. While almost always I swear by the leave no trace credo there are times when I appreciate a little human input into the landscape. The giant rock cairn on top of Mt Eisenhower is one example. We summited in the dense fog and without the cairn there really would have been nothing to see, maybe even no real way to know we'd reached the summit. On the AT in Vermont, at a place called White Rocks, there is forest of white quartz cairns of all shapes and sizes. Coming upon them after slogging through a muddy swamp was truly delightful and one felt a kinship with the thousands of creators. Each one may be only placing one rock but together building an art installation in the wilderness, for only the lovers of the wilderness to share.
Temple Mountain also has it's collection(s) of cairns. Why folks choose a spot for cairn building often seems a bit random, there certainly are appropriately sized rocks all over New England, but once one is built, it seems everyone wants to get in the act. The Temple Mountain cairns are spread over a mile of the trail, smaller communities of rocks every other rock outcropping or so. One group was extremely abstractly sculptural, another modestly handcrafted. But my favorite held The Bunny. On one of the larger balds, someone had built a 5 foot high cairn with a hollow shelf in the middle. There, in the middle of the hollow shelf, peering out of the shadows was a stuffed brown bunny. Happy spring hiking everyone!
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