Cairn-Building Tourist Collapses Entire Mountain's Navigation System

A well-meaning tourist has inadvertently collapsed the navigation system of a popular Vermont hiking trail after constructing 34 decorative cairns that bore no relationship to the actual route. 'I just thought they were pretty,' said Claudia Bensen, 29, who built the cairns over the course of a single afternoon as 'a mindfulness exercise.' 'I saw some rock piles on the trail and I thought, how lovely, I should make more.' The original trail, which uses cairns as navigational markers above treeline, had seven carefully positioned rock piles guiding hikers along a ridge traverse. Bensen's additions, placed at random intervals in various directions, created what park officials described as 'a Choose Your Own Adventure situation with no correct choices.' Six hikers went off-trail following Bensen's cairns. Two ended up in a bog. One descended the wrong side of the mountain into a grocery store parking lot. One crossed an unmarked border into Canada and had to explain to customs officials that she was 'following the cairns.' 'We found one hiker sitting next to Bensen's largest cairn, which was at the edge of a cliff,' said rescue volunteer Mike Denton. 'She said the trail seemed aggressive but she trusted the rocks.' Park staff spent two days dismantling the rogue cairns and reinstating the original navigation system. They have posted new signage reading 'DO NOT BUILD CAIRNS' in four languages, accompanied by a diagram showing the difference between 'navigation cairn' and 'art project.' Bensen has apologized and says she has redirected her mindfulness practice to 'breathing, which doesn't seem to mislead anyone.'