Man apologizes for peeing on Mauna Kea, posting video. ‘I was so arrogant’

A Hawaii man has apologized for posting a video of himself urinating on Mauna Kea, which is considered sacred by many native Hawaiians.

“I was so arrogant,” said Travis Upright in one of several posts to his Instagram account apologizing for the incident. “I disrespected your land.”

In the video, which appears to have since been removed, Upright urinates near the summit, then raises his middle finger to the camera, KITV reported.

Upright wrote on Instagram that he had to go to the bathroom after an 11-hour hike.

“As many were doing. I (thought) it looked cool with the clouds underneath me and so I had a video taken,” he wrote. “And the last minute flip off was just me being silly.”

But Upright said he now understands his actions were disrespectful and regrets them following an outcry over the video.

“It was a trauma to watch,” Hawaiian activist Healani Sonoda-Pale told HawaiiNewsNow about the video.

“It was just the sense of entitlement and privilege, it almost says, ‘I don’t care about my choices and my actions here,’ and, ‘I’m going to do whatever I’m going to do. I’m going to do whatever I want,’” Native Hawaiian activist Alfonso Kekuku told KITV.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources said the video “certainly could be viewed as culturally disrespectful” but broke no laws, HawaiiNewsNow reported.

It’s not clear when the initial video was posted, but Upright posted his first apology to Instagram on Nov. 15.

“I will do all I can to be more conscious everyday of the land and the people that have stewarded it,” he wrote. “Not just here but everywhere.”

In later posts, Upright says he hopes to pass on what he has learned to others.

But not everyone has accepted his apologies. Numerous comments on his Instagram posts accuse Upright of making the incident all about himself by repeatedly apologizing.

“In all of this, you continue to inflate yourself,” reads one response. “Just be quiet already.”

“True humility isn’t loud like this,” reads another post.

Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaii and also known as “Maunakea,” is the tallest mountain in the Hawaiian Chain at 13,795 feet high. The name means “white mountain,” referring to “the snow that caps its broad slopes for parts of the year,” according to the Hawai’i Tourism Authority.

The volcano is a “deeply sacred place” and “regarded as a shrine for worship, as a home to the gods, and as the piko of Hawaiʻi Island,” the Office of Hawaiian Affairs said on its website. “Piko” is a Hawiian word meaning the navel where life begins, the National Park Service said.

This story was originally published November 20, 2022 at 1:43 PM with the headline "Man apologizes for peeing on Mauna Kea, posting video. ‘I was so arrogant’."