Vandals Left Graffiti Near an Iconic Landmark in Arches National Park

Allyson Mathis was taking her friend on a midday stroll through Arches National Park on Wednesday, November 5, when the two spotted the unmistakable sight of graffiti.

High on a sandstone monolith overlooking the popular Devils Garden Trail, someone had jotted a series of letters “GRUG” in white spray paint. The paint was fresh, Matthis said.

Mathis, 59, is a retired National Park Service worker who lives in nearby Moab. She wanted to get a better look at the vandalism and climbed a nearby rock outcrop to get a better vantage point. When she was near the paint, she looked back down. Her heart sank. More rocks were painted, with symbols, smily faces, the letters FNAF, and yes, additional “GRUG.”

“It was everywhere,” she told Outside. “It was heartbreaking and upsetting, but unfortunately not surprising.”

Matthis snapped photos of the vandalism, which she said is clear to see from the trail. She shared the images with the nonprofit group Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. In one of the photos, the iconic image of Landscape Arch—one of the most popular geologic attractions in the western United States—frames the white graffiti.

The vandalism at Arches National Park is the latest setback for the National Park Service amid the federal shutdown, which on November 5 became the longest in U.S. history. Across the service, rangers have been furloughed or forced to stay home, leaving huge swaths of the country’s most beautiful and vulnerable backcountry unprotected to visitors. As of Friday, November 7, the shutdown had reached 39 days.

The shutdown started on October 1, and in the days afterward, multiple former NPS officials asked the government to close the parks to avoid vandalism and damage.

In Yosemite National Park, visitors have taken advantage of the government shutdown to BASE Jump off of El Capitan. There have also been allegations of illegal camping in some campgrounds.

“This is the type of thing that happens when you don’t have the staff to protect parks,” Emily Thompson, the executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, told Outside. “This is why we called on Secretary Burgum to close the parks if the government shut down.”

Some state agencies and non-profit groups have stepped in to fund some services at parks. According to Utah News Dispatch, the state of Utah is chipping in $8,000 per day to keep its five national parks open and running.

But “open and running” doesn’t cover all services. Mathis, who worked inside Grand Canyon National Park, said that while employees were stationed the main visitor center in Arches National Park, she saw no rangers out on the trails.

Vandals have left graffiti in national parks during normal stretches of park operations. In the past, graffiti has been discovered in the Great Smoky Mountains, Zion, Joshua Tree, Grand Teton, and Yosemite, among other destinations.

But Matthis believes the graffiti in Arches is directly the result of the shutdown. It’s located in a well-trafficked area near an iconic destination. If the park were fully staffed, she said, vandals would have likely been scared off by patrolling rangers.

“If rangers were out on patrol, people might not have felt that they could vandalize the area,” she said.

Outside reached out to Arches National Park’s public information officer, but a voice message said that the staffer was not allowed to work during the shutdown.

During her hike, which she took alongside a visiting friend, Mathis said that she saw other bad behavior. Some hikers had brought their dog along with them on the trail—pets are forbidden on hiking trails inside Arches National Park.

She also saw toilet paper near the graffiti.

“Sure, they are letting people go inside the parks, but there isn’t the protection and resource management that there should be,” she said. “This is a consequence of the parks not being staffed. Arches is extremely vulnerable.”

So, what’s the meaning of the grafitti? Outside’s contributor Owen Clarke noted that the writing depicts “inane pop-culture doodlings.” FNAF refers to the film and video game Five Nights at Freddy’s. Grug, Clarke noted, is a caveman protagonist in the Pixar film The Croods. 

Owen Clarke contributed to this story.