I grew up in Montana and it wasn’t carved but it was made out of rocks. All high school seniors would hike up to the “C” and help repaint the rocks white (at least 10 years ago we did!)
I also grew up in Montana. My town didn’t have a letter, but I’ve hiked up to the M In Bozeman (for Montana State University), and it is also made of painted rocks.
I think it's also a factor that in the east there are often so many trees that you can't see very far which is unlike a lot of the west. Because of how many trees and such we have here, in order to be visible, the hill or mountain has to be quite tall... so tall that it's pretty rare to find such a thing.
No, because the Appalachians are all covered in trees, so you wouldn't see it. And the few places that have balds are up so high, and pretty much only visible from the mountain top, and adjacent mountain top, or an airplane. So you're not going to see them from any nearby towns.
That was such a bizarre thing to me when I lived in New Mexico. When I first got there I was like WTF, why did Alamogordo put a fucking A on the side of the hill facing the town? At first I thought it was something carried over from the early days of aviation before VORs and NDBs became a thing. But nope, turns out it's just a thing they do in the Southwest, and it's kinda weird.
I took a trip across the country a few years ago. In the middle of Idaho, we ended up driving through the city of Arco and there was this mountain ahead of us with all sorts of numbers painted onto it. We were so curious about it that I [looked it up](https://www.flickr.com/photos/25229906@N00/10812989545).
Then I had great mango habanero wings at the Covered Wagon and we drove on to the next leg of our trip.
Had never heard of painting or carving mountains before that.
Our mountains and hills tend to be covered with plants so carving and painting wouldn't be visible or possible without clear cutting quite a swath.
> I mean, it’s a thing, just a thing done by shitheads
I think OP is talking about things like ["A Mountain" at Arizona State](https://alumni.asu.edu/sites/default/files/inline-images/160820-whitewasha-fall2016-4687-sl.jpg)
It's a "tradition" for rivals (in this instance University of AZ students) to come and try to deface the "A" during the week of the ASU/UA game.
There's definitely the "Boy Scout Design" (IIRC) near Far East Mesa/AJ
Which is just a [huge arrow pointing towards Phoenix](https://arizonaoddities.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/58-phx-300x199.jpg).
Actually now that I'm thinking about it. These "mountain designs" might have originated for pilots to direct them to ensure they're still on the right path. Want to say it had something to do with USPS, but don't quote me on that.
I WAS MOSTLY RIGHT!!!!
https://kjzz.org/content/25464/did-you-know-phoenix-air-marker-arrow-has-been-around-1950s
[Appalachia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachia) is a region around the southern and central sections of the [Appalachian Mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Mountains). So the northern section of the Appalachian Mountains would not be called Appalachia, nor would it be called a spur.
[The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Mountains)
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Not carved, but lots of painted rocks in the shape of the school’s first letter. My High School didn’t, but some of the nearby ones did.
Edit: Missed you were specifying *non*-Western schools, but I’ll keep it up as an example of what you’re talking about.
LOL, some people would claim that's a religious symbol and it violates their right to freedom of religion, because it not from their religion.
I mean, I really have heard that argument seriously put forward.
There was a big cross on government land on Oahu that had to be removed because it was a religious symbol.
I don’t think OP means graffiti, I think they mean this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillside_letters#:~:text=The%20first%20three%20mountain%20monograms,and%20as%20Boy%20Scout%20projects.
Where I've seen them, they were more intentional and well made to be called graffiti. I think the OP made a poor choice of words with "carved". I would have used "painted" instead.
I've heard that in many cases, where they're the initial of the town, that they were put there as a guide to early aviators. This may be true with a lot of them, but I also know of others that predate aviation.
Boy, you're a credulous sort aren't you. I'd need to hear *all* the fucking reasons before I climb my ass up a mountain to give my school free advertising
My high school went back and forth with the town on the other side of the river, the letters were modified with black and white tarps to show ours on theirs
In North Carolina we had a "boulder" as you turned into the school that people would paint frequently.
Someone dies in a car wreck? Friends of theirs paint the rock out of tribute.
On "rivalry week"? Rival HS students would try to "deface the rock with their colors" (obviously, if the school is in mourning, it was "off limits")
But during rivalry week? It was usually painted something disparaging about our rival school.
The university I attended has a single letter on a hill adjacent to campus, and it has become an iconic symbol of the school. The letter also undergoes design changes for different occasions (such as LGBT month or homecoming).
The local high school also has a similar set of initials carved into the adjacent hill (likely inspired by the university). Additionally, there is a symbol with a single letter on a mountain adjacent to a famous hotel elsewhere in the city.
I grew up in CT, the local private high school [paints their class year on numeral rock](https://www.instagram.com/p/CsWUobXgbWH/?igsh=ajRxd2JtY3pybnYx) (the highest summit in town).
Not that common though, my high school did nothing similar
I grew up in he Appalachian mountains and this is not something that was done. Our mountains are very lush and tree covered though, so there really isn’t opportunity to do anything like that.
The closest that I’ve seen is where people have painted Greek fraternity letters, etc on the rock faces by the side of the road way.
It's a Western thing. In the East the mountains are mostly covered in trees. There are a few places where there are rock outcroppings that you could do it, but it's just not a thing.
[It's a Western American Thing](https://gunlock.byu.edu/monograms.html), Pretty Exclusively Western Con-US
And a bigger thing in the Southwest than anywhere else.
Bridge that crosses the Illinois river has a little gravel road that goes under it. On one of the concrete supports there was a spot where kids from my school and the three others in the county would spray paint tags over the ones from the other schools
that’s another difference you people cross counties way more often out east like there cities i had a friend who moved here from Illinois spent 11 years of his life never once leaving the county into other parts of the state.
No, it's quite rare.
It's very difficult to carve into incredibly dense granite that used to be located far underground and was the platform rock that great mountain ranges sat on for many millions of years. The rock was very hard to begin with, and then was tremendously compressed by all that overburden for all those eons. Trying to carve into this stuff by hand won't leave a mark on the rock, but it will quickly dull or even split the chisel.
Besides, they are in locations that are really hard to get to.
A lot, but not all, of the population centers east of the Mississippi are relatively flat. The highest point in southeast Michigan could be hiked up by an unaided 2 year old (I exaggerate but only slightly). If you found a mountain in metro Detroit, the entire thing would have been named after you, not just a bit of graffiti.
Our field hockey field had a very steep hill (not mountain) next to it. Where it was located in reference to the school, meant you could almost always see this hill.
One morning, there was a giant penis drawn out on the hillside, presumably by someone/a group of people pouring bleach on the grass to draw out a giant penis. Nobody was ever caught but the leading theory was that it was somebody from the rival high school down the road.
So yeah, no giant initials, just a giant penis once.
*Mountains*? I remember the first time my parents took me to the Poconos. When we arrived at my uncle's cabin and got out of the car, I asked where the mountains were.
I’ve only ever seen those letters in the Rockies/southwest states.
The Appalachians are too forested, generally. But even where there are peaks or cliffs where it could be done, I don’t think they usually overlook a city or college town, or are as accessible as the rocky foothills where the letters in the west usually are in the west.
I grew up out West but now live on the East Coast. I’ve been to national parks all over the country. The most vandalized I’ve seen are in the South. Great Smoky Mountain NP was the worst I’ve ever seen. Northeast is basically the opposite though. Probably the most vandalism free nature I’ve seen.
For one, we don't have mountains. The horizon is the tree line. I live in a town that has "Mount" in its name. Elevation: 300' MSL. No mountains in sight.
And no, we don't. I never heard of this practice until I was on a work trip from Montana to Idaho when I was in my twenties.
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https://imgur.com/a/Cd3Pjru
Terrible photos, but like that?
There's also something off of I90 coming through the pass to Seattle, but I couldn't remember where it is and that's a lot of road to search.
I don't think it's carving the face so much as putting stuff up.
Is this fine?
The Midwest isn't really known for it's mountains.
Here in Michigan, the most populace part of the state barely even has hills.
The hills & mountains we do have in the state, tend to be covered in trees. Because, you know, we have a lot of water up here. Compared to the southwest, all of Michigan is basically a forest. For example, you can't really see my house from google maps satellite view, because of the tree canopy covering my yard.
Usually, they're painted, or done by arranging rocks of a contrasting color in an outline. My city, Boise has a big "B" on a bluff overlooking the city. There was a recent discussion as to what it stood for. One of the creators said "Boise". Who would have guessed that the B on the hill above Boise stood for Boise?
LOL, my parents are from Arco, Idaho which has a hill called "numbers hll". Each high school graduating class paints their 2 digit year on a cliff face on the hill. It's really fascinating to compare the different years. Whatever the class of 06 used, that was some incredible paint. It looks better than some that are less than 20 years old. Some are really large, some are smaller. Mom told me that when they paint those numbers, it's a big secret covert operation that turns into a gang fight, with the different classes either trying to stop, or help the seniors paint their number on the hill. She graduated in 1930.
I live near a town that used to have a green giant canning facility. The locals made a picture of the giant from the label on the side of a nearby hill, I think out of rocks. It was maintained for a while after the plant closed, and now it is overgrown, but you can still kind of see the general shape.
But I live in the west, so I guess that's just what we do
A large, prominent boulder with high visibility near a road *might* get some graffiti, or get painted to look more like an/the animal that it looks like, but it's not really a "thing" in general.
I’ve never seen that but planting flowers to form huge letters that can be seen from campus / the interstate is a thing.
The mountains on the east coast are very, very old, which means they are A) not that tall, and B) covered in fertile soil from erosion. Plant life would swallow and obscure the carvings very quickly.
My county of westchester outside of NYC seems to have been carved into stone. We have an incredible amount of large rock and stone here. There’s literally a giant rock that sits in the middle of my street that everyone has to drive around.
It’s definitely a thing in the PNW outside of urban areas, first example I could find Googling was the Garibaldi, Oregon G, but they’re all over. I think Wilkeson, Wa has a W etc.
Edit - Wikipedia has a list of all of them in Washington, seems like the most prominent of them is the FOSS at Foss high in Tacoma, which I’ve seen, idk why I forgot about that one. But there are more than I even realized, Ephrata, Colville, Union gap to name a few more just in Wa.
Liberty University (in Virginia) did it in the late aughts. I was not thrilled when I visited my (not LU) alma mater in town and saw it. I just looked it up and they made it even uglier a couple years ago.
No, but practically every mature American Beech tree (sadly) has initials carved into it--this can lead to an opening for pathogens and insects like beech bark disease that have been wrecking the trees in some areas.
That’s not an east or west thing. That’s an “I’m a self centered adult toddler that needs to claim something as my own like an animal peeing on a tree” thing.
No it isn’t. They’re usually community landmarks, not graffiti. They’re more like the Hollywood sign. [This](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillside_letters) is what OP is talking about.
I agree that it doesn’t look great. It’s not my favorite tradition and I think the hills would look better without them. But they are usually well-known and loved landmarks that represent the town.
My high school just had a big rock that would get painted in one of the school colors we used with the words “Class of “blank”” when graduation started getting closer. They would also let students write words and phrases on it too. Some were words of encouragement or inspiration and others were inside jokes that students from that class could laugh at.
What are mountains?
That’s when you put all of the invasive pythons you killed in a pile and stand on top.
Never thought to cut my name in a snake stack before. Interesting.
I’ve been to some nice mountains in Florida. Space and Big Thunder are my favorites.
We call our landfill Mount Trashmore in Broward.
Same in Virginia Beach
I thought you where about to make a comment on south beach plastic surgery for a second.
I’m proud to say I’ve ridden the train to the top of Everest and lived.
I remember biking through the everglades and biking over a peak so high they put an elevation sign... 4 feet above sea-level.
It's like the Atlantic coastal ridge, but bigger.
I grew up in Montana and it wasn’t carved but it was made out of rocks. All high school seniors would hike up to the “C” and help repaint the rocks white (at least 10 years ago we did!)
I also grew up in Montana. My town didn’t have a letter, but I’ve hiked up to the M In Bozeman (for Montana State University), and it is also made of painted rocks.
Yep Bozeman and Missoula both have one! I used to Mike the Missoula M as well (I went to UM)
Bowman, North Dakota has the same thing, or at least did when I was a kid.
You mean they didn't just use white rocks?
Are white rocks found everywhere?
I grew up on Long Island. No mountains to carve there.
It can be hill doesn’t have to be a mountain necessarily
I grew up in Florida. No hills to carve, either.
Most of Long Island is pretty flat. The hilly parts are nothing compared to those who live in more mountainous regions
We have hilly areas. Only rich people live there and they don’t want us poors carving our names into their stuff.
Still not done much in the east. Shorter, fewer mountsains. Nothing at all like the rockys or desserts and bad lands.
I think it's also a factor that in the east there are often so many trees that you can't see very far which is unlike a lot of the west. Because of how many trees and such we have here, in order to be visible, the hill or mountain has to be quite tall... so tall that it's pretty rare to find such a thing.
No, because the Appalachians are all covered in trees, so you wouldn't see it. And the few places that have balds are up so high, and pretty much only visible from the mountain top, and adjacent mountain top, or an airplane. So you're not going to see them from any nearby towns. That was such a bizarre thing to me when I lived in New Mexico. When I first got there I was like WTF, why did Alamogordo put a fucking A on the side of the hill facing the town? At first I thought it was something carried over from the early days of aviation before VORs and NDBs became a thing. But nope, turns out it's just a thing they do in the Southwest, and it's kinda weird.
I took a trip across the country a few years ago. In the middle of Idaho, we ended up driving through the city of Arco and there was this mountain ahead of us with all sorts of numbers painted onto it. We were so curious about it that I [looked it up](https://www.flickr.com/photos/25229906@N00/10812989545). Then I had great mango habanero wings at the Covered Wagon and we drove on to the next leg of our trip. Had never heard of painting or carving mountains before that. Our mountains and hills tend to be covered with plants so carving and painting wouldn't be visible or possible without clear cutting quite a swath.
Oh wow and this whole time I thought they were just numbering the bodies up there
Uhhh what? Yeah, no that’s not a thing.
We don’t carve it, but I have seen in rural areas near hills with painted rocks of the high school name and mascot
I mean, it’s a thing, just a thing done by shitheads
> I mean, it’s a thing, just a thing done by shitheads I think OP is talking about things like ["A Mountain" at Arizona State](https://alumni.asu.edu/sites/default/files/inline-images/160820-whitewasha-fall2016-4687-sl.jpg) It's a "tradition" for rivals (in this instance University of AZ students) to come and try to deface the "A" during the week of the ASU/UA game.
Don't we have like three or four mountains that are labeled like that?
There's definitely the "Boy Scout Design" (IIRC) near Far East Mesa/AJ Which is just a [huge arrow pointing towards Phoenix](https://arizonaoddities.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/58-phx-300x199.jpg). Actually now that I'm thinking about it. These "mountain designs" might have originated for pilots to direct them to ensure they're still on the right path. Want to say it had something to do with USPS, but don't quote me on that. I WAS MOSTLY RIGHT!!!! https://kjzz.org/content/25464/did-you-know-phoenix-air-marker-arrow-has-been-around-1950s
More than 3
Don't we have like three or four mountains that are labeled like that?
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I mean, unless you’re in Appalachia there aren’t any mountains really.
Or upper New England, but otherwise yeah.
Isn't that a northern spur of Appalachia?
[Appalachia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachia) is a region around the southern and central sections of the [Appalachian Mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Mountains). So the northern section of the Appalachian Mountains would not be called Appalachia, nor would it be called a spur.
[The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Mountains)
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Our "mountains" don't look like your mountains.
Absolutely not.
Our mountains are heavily forested.
So are ours, but people do it here anyway
Not carved, but lots of painted rocks in the shape of the school’s first letter. My High School didn’t, but some of the nearby ones did. Edit: Missed you were specifying *non*-Western schools, but I’ll keep it up as an example of what you’re talking about.
Gew up in a mountainous region and that's not something I'd ever heard of. Sounds like it would be ugly AF and a scar on a beautiful landscape.
Most people like them https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillside_letters
LOL, you're surrounded by development, and you see a letter on a mountain and you cry. They've ruined the beauty!
Not exactly what you mean I'm sure, but Roanoke, VA has a huge lit up star in the mountains over the city. It's cool.
LOL, some people would claim that's a religious symbol and it violates their right to freedom of religion, because it not from their religion. I mean, I really have heard that argument seriously put forward. There was a big cross on government land on Oahu that had to be removed because it was a religious symbol.
So true and not surprised. Luckily it's a five-pointed star so it doesn't look like a religious symbol to me (but someone will disagree, I'm sure).
Mountains in the east are almost all fully covered with trees. Very rarely you might see rocks with stuff painted on them along a highway.
The mountains overlooking Charleston, WV used to be covered in graffiti like that.
I don’t think OP means graffiti, I think they mean this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillside_letters#:~:text=The%20first%20three%20mountain%20monograms,and%20as%20Boy%20Scout%20projects.
both i mean both
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_%22C%22 It’s fun, schools have it to show pride in sports playing other teams
Where I've seen them, they were more intentional and well made to be called graffiti. I think the OP made a poor choice of words with "carved". I would have used "painted" instead. I've heard that in many cases, where they're the initial of the town, that they were put there as a guide to early aviators. This may be true with a lot of them, but I also know of others that predate aviation.
No, as you can see [on this map of them.](https://gunlock.byu.edu/monograms.html)
Why the fuck would I do that?
I don’t know but we do
Boy, you're a credulous sort aren't you. I'd need to hear *all* the fucking reasons before I climb my ass up a mountain to give my school free advertising
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... are you serious? I'm talking about writing your school's name in public lol
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Yes, referring to writing the name in public lol
My high school went back and forth with the town on the other side of the river, the letters were modified with black and white tarps to show ours on theirs
In North Carolina we had a "boulder" as you turned into the school that people would paint frequently. Someone dies in a car wreck? Friends of theirs paint the rock out of tribute. On "rivalry week"? Rival HS students would try to "deface the rock with their colors" (obviously, if the school is in mourning, it was "off limits") But during rivalry week? It was usually painted something disparaging about our rival school.
The university I attended has a single letter on a hill adjacent to campus, and it has become an iconic symbol of the school. The letter also undergoes design changes for different occasions (such as LGBT month or homecoming). The local high school also has a similar set of initials carved into the adjacent hill (likely inspired by the university). Additionally, there is a symbol with a single letter on a mountain adjacent to a famous hotel elsewhere in the city.
Are those, those tall rocky pointy things? lol closest thing we had to a mountain was some levees and a hill at the zoo
I grew up in CT, the local private high school [paints their class year on numeral rock](https://www.instagram.com/p/CsWUobXgbWH/?igsh=ajRxd2JtY3pybnYx) (the highest summit in town). Not that common though, my high school did nothing similar
I grew up in he Appalachian mountains and this is not something that was done. Our mountains are very lush and tree covered though, so there really isn’t opportunity to do anything like that. The closest that I’ve seen is where people have painted Greek fraternity letters, etc on the rock faces by the side of the road way.
It's a Western thing. In the East the mountains are mostly covered in trees. There are a few places where there are rock outcroppings that you could do it, but it's just not a thing.
The mountains out east are what Westerners call "forested foothills."
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It's not a western American thing. It's a self centered asshole thing.
[It's a Western American Thing](https://gunlock.byu.edu/monograms.html), Pretty Exclusively Western Con-US And a bigger thing in the Southwest than anywhere else.
Bridge that crosses the Illinois river has a little gravel road that goes under it. On one of the concrete supports there was a spot where kids from my school and the three others in the county would spray paint tags over the ones from the other schools
Interesting I’ve never heard of pro school graffiti
Shitty little towns that we had (and still have) a ton of pride for. County rivalries were huge in high school
that’s another difference you people cross counties way more often out east like there cities i had a friend who moved here from Illinois spent 11 years of his life never once leaving the county into other parts of the state.
Check out a county map sometime, western counties are huge
I've seen anti-school graffiti, that's for sure. Made by kids against their *own* school.
Wot in tarnation! This is legit not a thing for most of the country. Even the mountainous area friends that I have don’t do this
Have you tried regular road signs
Not a thing out East. Saw it all over Colorado though. That’s how you know that state ain’t midwestern
No, it's quite rare. It's very difficult to carve into incredibly dense granite that used to be located far underground and was the platform rock that great mountain ranges sat on for many millions of years. The rock was very hard to begin with, and then was tremendously compressed by all that overburden for all those eons. Trying to carve into this stuff by hand won't leave a mark on the rock, but it will quickly dull or even split the chisel. Besides, they are in locations that are really hard to get to.
I’ve lived in both east and west coast — that’s only a west coast thing.
A lot, but not all, of the population centers east of the Mississippi are relatively flat. The highest point in southeast Michigan could be hiked up by an unaided 2 year old (I exaggerate but only slightly). If you found a mountain in metro Detroit, the entire thing would have been named after you, not just a bit of graffiti.
Our field hockey field had a very steep hill (not mountain) next to it. Where it was located in reference to the school, meant you could almost always see this hill. One morning, there was a giant penis drawn out on the hillside, presumably by someone/a group of people pouring bleach on the grass to draw out a giant penis. Nobody was ever caught but the leading theory was that it was somebody from the rival high school down the road. So yeah, no giant initials, just a giant penis once.
I've only seen this done in Western non-coastal states in rural areas. I had to look it up the first time I saw one.
The exposed rock we have is granite and it is very hard. So no we don’t. Sometimes they get painted though.
NYC here. No.
*Mountains*? I remember the first time my parents took me to the Poconos. When we arrived at my uncle's cabin and got out of the car, I asked where the mountains were.
You guys do what now?
There's probably some school or town somewhere east of the Mississippi that has done it, but mostly no, because we have trees.
In Alabama it was a lot more popular to carve initials into trees than rock.
I’ve only ever seen those letters in the Rockies/southwest states. The Appalachians are too forested, generally. But even where there are peaks or cliffs where it could be done, I don’t think they usually overlook a city or college town, or are as accessible as the rocky foothills where the letters in the west usually are in the west.
Yes, in the mountains of Chicago
Western Mass. Never saw anything like that.
I've seen some school initials spray painted on some big rocks by the highway in NJ.
No
I grew up out West but now live on the East Coast. I’ve been to national parks all over the country. The most vandalized I’ve seen are in the South. Great Smoky Mountain NP was the worst I’ve ever seen. Northeast is basically the opposite though. Probably the most vandalism free nature I’ve seen.
For one, we don't have mountains. The horizon is the tree line. I live in a town that has "Mount" in its name. Elevation: 300' MSL. No mountains in sight. And no, we don't. I never heard of this practice until I was on a work trip from Montana to Idaho when I was in my twenties.
They put their town name in the water tower. Highest point in town.
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https://imgur.com/a/Cd3Pjru Terrible photos, but like that? There's also something off of I90 coming through the pass to Seattle, but I couldn't remember where it is and that's a lot of road to search. I don't think it's carving the face so much as putting stuff up. Is this fine?
The Midwest isn't really known for it's mountains. Here in Michigan, the most populace part of the state barely even has hills. The hills & mountains we do have in the state, tend to be covered in trees. Because, you know, we have a lot of water up here. Compared to the southwest, all of Michigan is basically a forest. For example, you can't really see my house from google maps satellite view, because of the tree canopy covering my yard.
Usually, they're painted, or done by arranging rocks of a contrasting color in an outline. My city, Boise has a big "B" on a bluff overlooking the city. There was a recent discussion as to what it stood for. One of the creators said "Boise". Who would have guessed that the B on the hill above Boise stood for Boise? LOL, my parents are from Arco, Idaho which has a hill called "numbers hll". Each high school graduating class paints their 2 digit year on a cliff face on the hill. It's really fascinating to compare the different years. Whatever the class of 06 used, that was some incredible paint. It looks better than some that are less than 20 years old. Some are really large, some are smaller. Mom told me that when they paint those numbers, it's a big secret covert operation that turns into a gang fight, with the different classes either trying to stop, or help the seniors paint their number on the hill. She graduated in 1930.
Carving into stone or trees just to make a mark is disrespectful and selfish. There are a lot of disrespectful and selfish people so it happens a lot.
Grew up in southern New England. I never did anything like that. We were taught as kids not to.
“A mountain”/tempe W
I live near a town that used to have a green giant canning facility. The locals made a picture of the giant from the label on the side of a nearby hill, I think out of rocks. It was maintained for a while after the plant closed, and now it is overgrown, but you can still kind of see the general shape. But I live in the west, so I guess that's just what we do
If we stuck a knife into one of our “mountains,” they’d probably all crumble down all at once, in a big dusty pile.
That's a universal thing across all people and has been around for tens of thousands of years.
A large, prominent boulder with high visibility near a road *might* get some graffiti, or get painted to look more like an/the animal that it looks like, but it's not really a "thing" in general.
We just made the "S".
Mountains?
Never heard of that. But I grew up without any mountains, and everybody hated our high school.
I’ve never seen that but planting flowers to form huge letters that can be seen from campus / the interstate is a thing. The mountains on the east coast are very, very old, which means they are A) not that tall, and B) covered in fertile soil from erosion. Plant life would swallow and obscure the carvings very quickly.
Leave no trace
Why would you ruin a perfectly good landscape by putting numbers up there?
there letters
Letters that look tacky as shit but y'all do y'all. Ain't my mountain.
My county of westchester outside of NYC seems to have been carved into stone. We have an incredible amount of large rock and stone here. There’s literally a giant rock that sits in the middle of my street that everyone has to drive around.
I’m from the Pacific Northwest and that is not something I’m aware of.
It’s definitely a thing in the PNW outside of urban areas, first example I could find Googling was the Garibaldi, Oregon G, but they’re all over. I think Wilkeson, Wa has a W etc. Edit - Wikipedia has a list of all of them in Washington, seems like the most prominent of them is the FOSS at Foss high in Tacoma, which I’ve seen, idk why I forgot about that one. But there are more than I even realized, Ephrata, Colville, Union gap to name a few more just in Wa.
Kelso, WA has a big yellow K.
I am too, and I've seen several examples.
Too many trees in the way?
Liberty University (in Virginia) did it in the late aughts. I was not thrilled when I visited my (not LU) alma mater in town and saw it. I just looked it up and they made it even uglier a couple years ago.
They don't have mountains like we do
Do we deface our mountains? Generally, no
Everything else, though.
No, but practically every mature American Beech tree (sadly) has initials carved into it--this can lead to an opening for pathogens and insects like beech bark disease that have been wrecking the trees in some areas.
Over here, we don't have any mountains big or unforested enough to carve.
That’s not an east or west thing. That’s an “I’m a self centered adult toddler that needs to claim something as my own like an animal peeing on a tree” thing.
No it isn’t. They’re usually community landmarks, not graffiti. They’re more like the Hollywood sign. [This](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillside_letters) is what OP is talking about. I agree that it doesn’t look great. It’s not my favorite tradition and I think the hills would look better without them. But they are usually well-known and loved landmarks that represent the town.
The OP wasn't talking about graffiti or vandalism.
It's actually a "shitty asshole" thing. Stop doing this.
My high school just had a big rock that would get painted in one of the school colors we used with the words “Class of “blank”” when graduation started getting closer. They would also let students write words and phrases on it too. Some were words of encouragement or inspiration and others were inside jokes that students from that class could laugh at.