This post will be read by many who don't need the message, and those who do will likely ignore it, but here goes. Earlier this summer it was discovered that a sign near the top of Gray, advising bushwhackers NOT to use the seemingly easy shortcut to Marcy along the connecting ridge was missing. It had either fallen or been removed, and was found some distance away, as if some vandal had tossed it into the cripplebrush. The old herdpath was an accepted route many years ago, but there were at least three problems with it. The biggest was the damage being done to the alpine vegetation on Marcy by hikers using that route. A secondary problem was that clueless tourists on Marcy, observing bushwhackers either heading off toward Gray, or coming the other way and emerging from the thick brush onto the open summit dome, might be misled into thinking that was the way to go. And a third problem, as this writer discovered on his first ascent of Gray many decades ago, was that it wasn't as easy as it looked. There were numerous false paths and the krummholz was about as thick as it gets. Besides, the now-standard route from Lake Tear has long been the recommended path as it is short, easy to follow, and open enough to offer some nice views. Apart from the missing sign, further evidence that people were still bushwhacking the ridge was that the brush which had obscured the old path had been removed, making it visible and tempting to those who don't know better. Long story short, the sign has been re-attached, albeit somewhat amateurishly, to a prominent and reasonably sturdy tree, and after about an hour of scrounging for dead sticks and branches, the beginning of the old herdpath has once again been brushed off. It is also good to be able to report that the illegally placed cairns on Marcy which people had used to mark the former herdpath have been removed, thanks to the summit stewards.
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