After video of a pair of young men carelessly throwing pieces of rock off a cliff face at a popular Canmore hiking trail went viral this week, hikers in the area are decrying their actions as ‘stupid’ and ‘dangerous’.
In the video, two young men are shown taking turns throwing some large rocks over the edge of a cliff, unaware of the potential risk to anyone below.
It’s since been removed from social media, but many people who frequent the area say the stunt could have had serious consequences.
“It’s pretty silly. It’s dangerous,” said one woman. “You’re disrupting nature. You don’t know what’s underneath there and you might be causing a whole bigger issue.”
Even visitors to Canada who are enjoying the Rocky Mountains for the first time in their lives think that throwing rocks is a ridiculous idea.
“Oh that’s stupid. There’s no point. It’s just dangerous. I can’t believe that people are doing it,” said Simon Doering from Germany.
“It’s a threat for people’s life. There’s no purpose of throwing rocks,” said Marwa Haddra, who is from Tunisia. “If there are people who are doing this, there should be signs or restrictions.”
Other people who come to the trails of Mount Rundle on a regular basis say that the idea of someone throwing rocks is ruining the enjoyment of the area.
“It was frustrating. There are a lot of people who do fun stuff in the mountains and they shouldn’t have to worry about rocks hitting them,” said Chris Cobin.
Cobin says that some signage could help, if only to communicate the rules to hikers who aren’t as experienced as some.
Al Black, chairperson of the Climbers’ Access Society of Alberta, said he was sad when he first saw the video of the rock throwing.
“Here’s this situation that’s on camera that we know is just going to blow up. It’s just two guys out having fun. They’re just throwing rocks off the cliff and they have no idea about what they’re doing.”
Black says that the East End of Mount Rundle is a very popular climbing spot so the odds are pretty high that there was someone around them who could have gotten hit.
“They could have been killed. A rock that size, hits you in the head, you’re gone. If it hits you in the arm, you lose an arm. That’s the consequence of it.”
He says that it’s great that no one was hurt and signage could be a great idea to include to help inform those who just aren’t aware of the risks.
“Putting it up on the cliff, maintaining the sign could be really helpful to protect the recreating up there.”
Meanwhile, RCMP did say that they opened an investigation into the incident and that it led them to one of the men in the video.
They opted not to lay any charges because they determined that the group was inexperienced and didn’t understand the harm that could have been inflicted.
(With files from Brenna Rose)
