Reddit Catches National Park Vandal

Booooo!

It would still need to be removed, and make sure it's not there even if it was washed off with the rain. The best alternative to this (other then just not doing it) would in my opinion have been to use chalk or something easy to clean off to make the art, take a photo and post it to your blog or whatever, and then immediately clean it off. Obviously you should also film the cleaning of it so you have proof that you cleaned so people don't need to check whether or not the drawing is still there. Of course you CAN still be punished, but at least the intention is fine, in my opinion.

Chalk is less destructive owing to the fact that it will wash away, but that's not the same as "ok". You're still adding a bunch of Calcium Carbonate into a system with no treatment and no natural way for it to wash away which has impacts on an environment we're hypothetically trying to preserve. One person adding chalk on its own is probably not a measurable problem, but if a large percentage of the thousands of visitors a year started adding their own stuff, you can imagine how that starts adding up problematically and that's probably a major factor in determining the vandalism status. That said, if it was your first time, I'd best that a chalk painting would get you a warning and an acrylic painting would get you a fine. But she didn't do it once so....who knows how lenient they'd feel.