Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but pictures

We have all heard to "Leave nothing but footprints and take nothing but pictures".  Yet, for a lot of people, this doesn't seem to sink in.  Honestly, it is frustrating.  You go to an awesome natural place, looking to discover something new, but when you find what you were looking for, you find it awesome, awe inspiring and covered in graffiti.
Take, for example, the natural wonder that is the Balanced Rock at Trough Creek State Park in Pennsylvania.  This place is just cool.  A massive boulder teeters on the edge of a steep cliff.  To get to it, you hike past a waterfall and up stone steps and a narrow, well worn trail.  Continuing down the same trail, you will come to a stream and a rock named Raven's Rock, where, legend has it, Edgar Allen Poe was inspired to write his classic poem The Raven.  This is a special place.  It is quiet.  It is hidden away on a country road, in a valley with no cellular phone service.  The road dead ends in the park, near Raystown Lake.  It is a peaceful, quiet place with some unique geological features.
I fell in love almost instantly with this unique, quiet place.  Imagine my surprise then, when, after hiking past the waterfall, and up the stone steps to see the balanced rock, I saw not only an amazing piece of the natural world, but also the graffiti of countless other visitors.

Why?  What is the point?  No one, outside of the moron with the spray paint, actually cares that "Joe was here" or "ND+HR=Luv 1994" or that the "Class of 2008 is awesome".  We don't come to places like Trough Creek to see your message.  We come to see the natural beauty.  If you want to prove you were here, take a picture.  If you want everyone else to know you were there, post your picture to Facebook, or Instagram, or your blog.  
You can see the same sort of thing in the boulder field at Hickory Run.

 You can see worse at Seneca Point in Cook Forest, where, over the years, determined graffiti artists have actually carved their names into the ancient rocks.  I don't just mean surface scratches. I mean deep, not going anywhere, going to take thousands of years to erode away, gouges in the rocks. While you can't see them in the picture, you an see some spray paint.  But, you also get an idea of the beauty of the place that has been sullied by graffiti.

Who brings spray paint on a hike???  Who actually sits around and makes plans to spray paint things on rocks, in places of beauty?  Things like this don't happen on a whim.  People actually planned to do this.  Premeditated.  They actually planned to come to these special places with spray paint, or chisels and do what they did.  It is sad.  It is also sad that they did it and either no one saw them or that no one stopped them.  Maybe I was raised to respect property that I personally do not own.  Maybe I find it blasphemous to deface beauty.  Maybe I just have the good sense to leave nature be nature, unspoiled by man.  I just don't see the point in painting or chiseling my name on a rock, or carving up a beautiful beech tree with my initials and the current year.
If I want to remember a place, I take a picture or buy the T-shirt.  I strongly urge all of you to do the same.  Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but pictures.