I Narrowly Avoid a 5 Year Jail Term and 100K Fine

El Morro National Monument

Back in the day, as in before 1906, people living at El Morro (Native Americans), or passing through (Spanish or Americans), or working on the railroad (Americans), etc. left their mark on the giant sandstone bluff here. Think early Instagram. The marks were petroglyphs, in the case of the Native Americans. Very elaborate signatures, dates, and sometimes further elaboration in the case of the Spanish and Americans. Even a poem, Spanish.

This all changed when El Morrow was declared a National Monument by Teddy Roosevelt in 1906 and no further inscriptions were allowed.

So, everything scratched into the sandstone before 1906 is a national treasure and to be preserved at great cost.

But anything scratched into the sandstone after 1909 is just graffiti and is terrible, horrible, destructive, illegal, and defacing for this national treasure.

So much so, that if you are caught marking up the rock these days, you can get up to a 5 year jail term and 100k fine.

Which brings me to my possible felony.

We were hiking on top of the cliffs on the Headland Trail (great hike, highly recommended) when we saw a cell phone, abandoned on a bench, no one else in sight. What to do? It looked like it was going to rain. We decided to take the phone down to the ranger station and leave a note on the bench in case the phone owner retraced their steps to where they left the phone.

We were most of the way back down to the ranger station when it occurred to me - does taping that note to the bench constitute defacing El Morrow? Uh, oh.

When we got to the ranger station, we handed the phone over to Ranger Leslie, and explained about the note. I asked, “Am I in trouble?” 

Well, it turns out, that fortunately, taping a note to a bench isn’t a felony. She said she’d have it removed. Whew!

Part of  "Inscription Rock" 

Some heavily photoshopped (I tried to increase contrast) inscriptions

 Some pictures from the hike