Criminals.

Elden Nelson (Fat Cyclist) and a few friends spent an afternoon in court the other day answering to charges that they’d thrown a rock off a cliff. The rock didn’t hit anyone or any animals, and it didn’t damage old cave drawings or crush any arrowheads.

We can agree that throwing rocks off cliffs is generally a bad idea. Climbing along hiking trails at High Cliff State Park back in high school we had plenty of people kicking rocks over the edge or tugging at our webbing tied off to sturdy trees. Fortunately the tallest ‘cliff’ was about 20 feet, so the rocks didn’t hurt too badly when they hit your skull. Of course, that’s not always the case.

In Fat Cyclist’s scenario, he’d checked the overhanging cliff for climbers and the landing zone for hikers and then tossed the rock over with the help of a friend. Later on a ranger contacted him about throwing the rock, which he admitted to doing, and ordered him and friends to appear in court to answer to the charges. They were fined about $60 each and sent on their way.

It’s a pretty funny story and worth reading, but what’s mind boggling to me and goes unaddressed in the blog post is how the hell they were caught. It seems the ranger didn’t see him throw the rock, but that someone actually contacted the ranger with a ‘hot tip’ about the illegal act. It begs the question, what kind of a person turns someone in for throwing rocks? And further, what kind of a ranger doesn’t tell the witness to get lost? Then the whole thing gets really out of hand when you find out that they actually went to court, were assigned a state defense attorney, and talked to a judge who had to make serious decisions based on these facts.