# Another National Park asshole vandal **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 23, 2016, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655 "2016-09-23T17:31:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/41 "2016-09-24T03:16:59Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Yes, i get that. But how does that work? The pressure from the water is somehow different than the pressure when it floods? It takes that much pressure that, um, pressure hoses are needed, or what? It’s not the pressure of the water; it’s the structure of the sediments. The sediments that make up the playa surface are really, really fine silt, clay, and salts. When they’re uncompacted, the individual grains remain separate, and they’re small/light enough that even surface tension from water can mobilize them. When they’re compacted, though, the individual grains agglomerate into larger particles that take much more energy to mobilize. The fine grained material will be picked up by precipitation or pooled water and redeposited into the characteristic cracked pattern when the water evaporates (surface runoff from the Racetrack is negligible). Compacted material isn’t mobilized and redistributed the same way, so the water-driven processes that shape the rest of the surface don’t erase the tracks (of rocks or cars). ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/42 "2016-09-24T03:21:18Z")
> [@Enginerd](#): > > It’s not the pressure of the water; it’s the structure of the sediments. The sediments that make up the playa surface are really, really fine silt, clay, and salts. When they’re uncompacted, the individual grains remain separate, and they’re small/light enough that even surface tension from water can mobilize them. When they’re compacted, though, the individual grains agglomerate into larger particles that take much more energy to mobilize. The fine grained material will be picked up by precipitation or pooled water and redeposited into the characteristic cracked pattern when the water evaporates (surface runoff from the Racetrack is negligible). Compacted material isn’t mobilized and redistributed the same way, so the water-driven processes that shape the rest of the surface don’t erase the tracks (of rocks or cars). So how would they “wet the surface down” in order to erase the tracks without disturbing the rest of the sand/dirt/mud? So the trails from the rocks are just there forever? They never get “erased” or whatever from flooding? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/43 "2016-09-24T03:22:38Z")
> [@Section\_Maker\_Jupe](#): > > Your opinion is fine, it counts as one opinion, its just fuckwad contrary for the hell of it stupid… but you probably know that. That’s a fine way to string words together! ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/44 "2016-09-24T05:43:19Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I’m a citizen of this country and I think people should be allowed to drive around there. My opinion doesn’t count simply because you disagree with it? Looks like fun to me to drive around a huge dry lake bed. No, your opinion doesn’t count. What counts is the opinion of the majority of the owners, and the opinion of the administrators they chose to manage the place. If you own a house, you can trash it to your heart’s content. But if the building is collectively owned (sharing property of a family house with your siblings, or living in a condominium), then you can’t do anymore what you want because the interest of the other co-owners must be protected. You have a say in the matter, but if the rest of the owners disagree with you, you have to abide by their rules, whether you like them or not. You can drive your vehicle on your own lawn if you feel like it, but not on the family house’s lawn, the condominium’s lawn, the company you’re a shareholder of lawn, or the national park’s lawn. Unless you can convince the majority of the owners to allow you to do so. Collective property is definitely not nobody’s property. It’s everybody’s property, as you have been told already many times, so nobody can decide alone how it can be used. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/45 "2016-09-24T07:15:15Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Yes, i get that. But how does that work? The pressure from the water is somehow different than the pressure when it floods? I don’t think you understand that it’s been thousands of years since it flooded. You do understand what a desert is? A place with vary little rain or water? > [@](#): > > I’m a citizen of this country and I think people should be allowed to drive around there. My opinion doesn’t count simply because you disagree with it? No, it doesn’t count because you’ve been outvoted. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/46 "2016-09-24T09:56:32Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Asshole vandalism doesn’t sound pleasant at all. But some people would pay good money to watch it ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/47 "2016-09-24T10:49:27Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > This time, some jerkwad decided it would be fun to joyride all over The Racetrack in Death Valley, leaving 10 miles worth of tire tracks. > > Las Vegas Review-Journal article: [Illegal tire tracks mar Death Valley dry lake famous for mysterious moving rocks](http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/water-environment/illegal-tire-tracks-mar-death-valley-dry-lake-famous-mysterious-moving-rocks) > > Jeez Louise, what is wrong with these people? :mad: 10 miles of tiretracks at the Racetrack??? Jerkwad? More like dickwadMotherFuckingCocksuckingAssholeShithead. The Racetrack is a very cool place, it was a pristine playa, save for those moving roacks. I hope they find the trailertrashFuckhead who did this. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/48 "2016-09-24T11:57:11Z")
> [@Section\_Maker\_Jupe](#): > > I’m a citizen of this country too, and I’m fine with the Park Service doing their thing, setting laws and doling out access. I’ve seen places that have had no rules regarding anything, and look pretty ugly… So thats my one opinion. Go on BLM land sometime. I’m on various bits of BLM (and Forest Service, which can be as bad) a few times a year to collect a small amount of surface rocks. Petrified wood and invertebrate fossils as well. Sometimes they’ve been deposited by nature, sometimes it’s looking through and around old tailings piles, but there’s no digging and minimal disturbance. And well within the rules for such lands. But I guarantee that while I’m driving to the areas I will pass all sorts of discarded trash that people are too cheap to dispose of properly. Furniture (couches seem to be popular), appliances, tires, and any number of other things that could have been disposed of properly with just a little bit of effort and perhaps a little money in things like facility fees. Instead people decide to drive to the middle of public land and just dump crap all over the desert. And of course there’s the beer bottles and myriad other trash they’re just too lazy to pack out. There are places on Forest Service land that are ruined by assholes carving or spraying graffiti all over the place. People who drive in for a night or weekend of car camping (which I don’t have a real problem with) and then proceed to leave the place worse than they found it. And then there’s the shooters. Forest Service may have restrictions, but BLM doesn’t have any. I guarantee I will find where people who were too lazy to pick up their brass and shells, much less whatever they set up as a target. It would have taken them two minutes, tops, to pick up that pile of shotgun shells. Instead, I’ve started taking along an extra trash bag to clean up and carry out a small amount of other people’s trash. I swear, death is too good for these people. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/49 "2016-09-24T15:38:52Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Fuck off, troll. That lake bed belongs to _me,_ and I’d gladly see the vandals dead. OK, maybe not dead. But maimed at least. Maybe a finger or three, couple of permanent scars visible to everybody. A limp even. Wow - sounds like Sharia law to me - why do you hate America? 😉 Seriously, I’ve added these guys to my list. When I get back to this quadrant, I’ll start dealing. There’s just so many Dictators, politicians, fake religious leaders, general scumbags; it may take a while to get to these dicks. – GOD :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/50 "2016-09-24T17:07:50Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Does it belong to you? No but it didn’t belong to the vandals either so what right did they have to destroy it? ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/51 "2016-09-24T18:19:00Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I don’t think you understand that it’s been thousands of years since it flooded. You do understand what a desert is? A place with vary little rain or water? [It does flood when it rains](http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada/death-valley-s-moving-rocks-caught-act). That’s apparently how the mysterious moving rocks get moved around. The town I live in has a playa, and it is a good place to teach your kids how to drive… but Racetrack Playa should be off-limits as a national park. And because of the mysterious history. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/52 "2016-09-26T01:58:56Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I don’t think you understand that it’s been thousands of years since it flooded. You do understand what a desert is? A place with vary little rain or water? There appears to be video of it being flooded. Are you saying there were video cameras 1000s of years ago? That seems a stupid position to take. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/53 "2016-09-26T03:12:22Z")
Are you saying that photographs are the only source of evidence in geology? That seems a stupid position to take. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/54 "2016-09-26T03:14:58Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Are you saying that photographs are the only source of evidence in geology? That seems a stupid position to take. Not sure who mentioned photographs. You posting in this thread seems like a stupid position to take. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/55 "2016-09-26T05:01:36Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Not sure who mentioned photographs. You posting in this thread seems like a stupid position to take. You mentioned video. Video is a form of photography. You’re being stupid. You’re also ugly and your dog doesn’t like you. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/56 "2016-09-26T05:38:34Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Make the vandals have to listen to **manson1972** for an hour. Violates the 8th Amendment, but what the hell. I’ve got the LP of It’s a Small World. If you leave the phonograph’s arm up, it’ll repeat indefinitely. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/57 "2016-09-26T11:15:36Z")
Don’t national parks belong to the government? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/58 "2016-09-26T11:49:04Z")
It’s quite possible the people who drove their vehicle didn’t realize it would do any permanent damage to the lake bed. I’m not arguing that they shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions though. I tend to obey signs in state/federal parks telling me I shouldn’t use motor vehicles in certain areas. But it wouldn’t automatically occur to me that driving on a dry lake bed was going to ruin anything. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/59 "2016-09-26T14:03:31Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > I’ve got the LP of It’s a Small World. If you leave the phonograph’s arm up, it’ll repeat indefinitely. Now **that’s** a war crime! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655/60 "2016-09-26T15:35:33Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > You’re also ugly and your dog doesn’t like you. Hey, this is supposed to be anonymous! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-national-park-asshole-vandal/766655.md?page=4)