Woman Says Her Boyfriend Got Drunk on a Backpacking Trip — Then Destroyed a 2,000-Year-Old Petroglyph With a Hatchet
A woman on Reddit said she was waiting for a shuttle back to her car after a backpacking trip with her boyfriend when she realized she might need to fly home instead of spending three more days with him. They had gone into a national park together, but she said it was his first real trip like that, and he had been difficult almost from the start.
According to her post, he packed far too much alcohol and almost no water. The springs they expected to use were mostly dry, and she said he could have been in serious trouble if they had not found one that still had water. When they finally found a good spring, he decided to drink the alcohol he had packed and refill the bottles with water instead.
That turned into the breaking point. She said he got very drunk, and when she told him he was scaring her, he pulled out a camp hatchet. Then he damaged what she described as a roughly 2,000-year-old petroglyph and broke off pieces of small lava rock formations nearby. She was disgusted enough that she packed up and started hiking out.
He caught up with her the next day, and she broke up with him on the spot. She said he screamed at her for hours during the hike back to the trailhead. By the time they reached the parking lot, he had calmed down, but she was still shaken and unsure whether she should report what he had done to park rangers before leaving.
She did call the National Park Service office, and a ranger was sent to meet her in the parking lot. While she waited, her ex told her to get in the car because they were leaving. She refused, and he said he was going into town for gas and that she had better come to her senses by the time he got back.
That was when an older woman nearby noticed something was wrong. The woman asked if the boyfriend had abandoned her. The Reddit poster said no, but admitted she was hoping he would not come back. The woman invited her into an RV to sit in the air conditioning while she figured out what to do.
From inside that RV, she spoke with the ranger. Her ex returned before the ranger arrived, searched the parking lot for her, sent an angry text, and then left. When the rangers arrived, she told them what happened, where the damage was, and why he had done it. They told her they would send someone to investigate and said that if the damage was serious enough, it could lead to a federal warrant and even a visit from NPS or the FBI.
The couple in the RV then offered to drive her to the airport, even though it was about 150 miles out of their way. She said they took her to an early dinner first and even insisted on giving her $100 for an emergency. By the end of the update, she was safe, home, done with the boyfriend, and still sick over the damage he had done to irreplaceable land and art.
