When San Luis Obispo resident Jason Barroca drove up a familiar, tree-lined road on Saturday, he expected a peaceful camping trip in the Los Padres National Forest.
Instead, he and his partner were greeted by swastikas spray-painted onto a rock formation next to the road past Lopez Lake.
“We were disgusted,” Barroca said. “To see hate like that is very disturbing for us.”
The rock formation is about a mile from the gate on Hi Mountain Road, he said.
Meanwhile, traffic signs on Hi Mountain Road near Lopez Drive were defaced with Nazi symbols as well, according to San Luis Obispo County Public Works Department spokesperson Shelly Cone.
The Public Works Department will replace the vandalized signs “ASAP,” Cone said, but the agency is not responsible for cleaning up the rock formation as the land is either private property or owned by the Los Padres National Forest.
As of Tuesday morning, the district ranger for this area of the Los Padres National Forest was aware of the vandalism and arranging to remove it, according to agency spokesperson Andrew Madsen.
Typically, when the U.S. Forest Service receives a complaint, park rangers investigate the site as soon as possible and clean the graffiti on the same day, he said.
“Any kind of offensive graffiti is something we’ll hop on as soon as we can,” Madsen said. “It’s very unfortunate that something like that would happen.”