CLOUDING THE MOUNTAIN: music & graffiti

City-spill on the trails

Usually I'd not publicly post the graffiti I photograph, no matter how mysterious or creatively worthy. Spray-painted mountain rock, in particular, is a form of pollution that should not be given digital air.

But the graffiti on a road barrier that protects the crumbling, restricted section of Tafelberg Road (above pic) has got me thinking about music being played on the mountain.

Live outbursts of spontaneous song, drum beat, or ritual chant on Table Mountain is all part of going up into the wilds and organically finding your vibe. And don't think I haven't hiked along to the sound of 70's - 80's funk/disco. It's makes for a far quicker ascent to where, hopefully, you won't come across me having a private boogie on some quiet and remote upper reach. Or captured by some tiktok-crazed drone-jockey, unaware I was being spied upon, because my earbuds would be muffling the drone's invasive buzz. Or worse, the crack of rockfall.

So, not only for reasons of dignity it's a bad idea.

Likewise some days on the Platteklip Gorge trail, Table Mountain's most popular route, when music pumps out of hikers' backpacks and handheld boomboxes. On a busy day the trail is such a multinational mix of comradely toil it could seem that some blaring speakers are a natural part of the berg vibe.

But mountains as a place to go for some kind of solace and to tune into nature, has been in human culture for so long.

Reminding the boomboxers of this, and that it's against the Park's rules, may seem a bit fuddiduddy. And ok, maybe an exception on Platteklip trail should unfortunately be made. Without rangers seen on any of the mountain's paths, however, this could lead to an assumption it's ok to blast out the hits everywhere, on any mountain.

Or is such fuddidudiness just generational dissonance. Should an allowance for a cultural shift greenlight the mountain masterblasters? And why not bring in the drones? Let's live-stream every path?

TMNP should make the choice, though. It would reduce misunderstandings and save the good vibes. And more crucially, if breaching the no music rule is assumed to be ok, it runs the risk of other more safety-orientated regulations being ignored as well.

16 October 2022

More on the problem of Table Mountain graffiti

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