‘A couple of yahoos’: 2 men seen destroying ancient rock formations arrested, feds say

Background: Image along the Redstone Trail in Lake Mead National Recreation Area (NPS/A. Harrison). Inset: In a video posted to social media, two adult males are seen pushing natural rock formations from the top of a cliff at the Redstone Dunes Trail area at Lake Mead National Recreation Area (National Park Service).

Two men are facing prison time for allegedly damaging natural rock formations estimated to be millions of years old.

Wyatt Clifford Fain, 37, and Payden David Guy Cosper, 31, are accused of pushing “large chunks of ancient rock formations over the edge of a cliff” in the area of the Redstone Dunes Trail at the Lake Mead Recreation Area, the Justice Department in Nevada announced Friday in a press release.

The incident occurred on April 7. On April 15, the National Park Service shared an image from a social media post purportedly showing the two men pushing a large red boulder off a cliff. The entire video, published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, shows the men pushing the stones from the formation, as well as clouds of dust emanating from where the boulders presumably landed.

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“Law enforcement park rangers at Lake Mead National Recreation Area are seeking information from the public to help identify suspects involved in a vandalism incident at the Redstone Dunes Trail area,” the NPS said at the time in a plea for help. “In a video posted to social media that was reportedly recorded on the evening of Sunday, April 7, 2024, two adult males are seen toppling natural rock formations from the top of a cliff.”

Lake Mead public information office John Haynes told the Review-Journal at the time that the “disgusting” incident left him “sick to [his] stomach.”

“I can’t imagine why anybody would do this,” he told the newspaper in April. “These sandstone formations take millions of years to form, and a couple of yahoos show up and destroy them in a few minutes.”

The action violated the rules of the park — which prohibit “[t]ossing, throwing or rolling rocks or other items inside caves or caverns, into valleys, canyons, or caverns, down hillsides or mountainsides, or into thermal features” — and “leave no trace principles” to minimize the impact on park lands.

A federal criminal complaint says the two men, “aiding and abetting one another, did injure and commit a depredation against property of the United States and of the Department of the Interior, National Parks Service, to wit: rock formations on or near the Redstone Dunes Trail[.]”

Fain and Cosper have been charged with one count each of injury and depredation of government property and one count of aiding and abetting. The accused vandals caused more than $1,000 in damages, the Justice Department said. If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.

They pleaded not guilty before a federal judge on Friday. A jury trial has been scheduled for Oct. 8.

The federal docket notes that prosecutors did not request that either defendant be taken into custody, and both Fain and Cosper remain free on personal recognizance.

The Lake Mead Recreational Area is located near Las Vegas and features “Joshua trees, slot canyons, and night skies illuminated by the Milky Way,” the park’s website says. “The park’s rocks are as red as fire, and the mountains are purple majesties.”

The website also notes that Lake Mead is the country’s “first and largest national recreation area and one of the most visited national parks in the United States.”

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‘A couple of yahoos’: 2 men seen destroying ancient rock formations arrested, feds say

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