Visitors Daringly Violate Park Regulations Amid Government Shutdown in Utah’s Arches National Park

In 2014, an artist named Casey Nocket, a.k.a. Creepytings, became a hot topic among national park officials, as she ventured on a road trip through Western National Parks and, on the way, left a long trail of graffiti. The 23-year-old pleaded guilty, was fined for defacing rocks, and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service, Modern Hiker reported. Regretfully, recent years have seen the same “tidal wave of graffiti” unfolding in various national parks across the US. In a recent report, CBS News covered graffiti officials spotted on the famous red rock of Arches National Park.

It is not unusual for park officials to stumble upon graffiti left by travellers and artists. They usually try to remove the graffiti by grinding or scraping the rock, sometimes trying to fill the etchings with some material. But most times, the damage is so much that the structure or rock becomes too damaged, and it goes beyond treatment. In this case, the graffiti, found on the park’s Delicate Arch, was “etched so deeply” that officials found it “impossible to erase.”

In many cases, rangers investigating the graffiti spotted the word “Grug” in a number of locations in the Devils Garden area of the park. As the government shutdown drags on, the problem of vandalism through graffiti has escalated to leaps and bounds. Two years ago, at least eight national parks in the West began the delicate task of cleaning up graffiti-like paintings left on famous, picturesque landscapes. Graffiti, however, is not the only problem. Visitors walking their dog in one of the park’s trails have often been observed, all the while breaking the park’s rules and regulations.

For this case, park Superintendent Kate Cannon described to CBS News that the carvings discovered earlier this month measure about 4 feet across and 3 feet high. Cannon added that defacing surfaces in the park is illegal and anyone caught can face up to six months in jail and a fine of up to five thousand dollars. "It is really overwhelming,” Cannon lamented, but “unfortunately, we can’t be everywhere all the time.”