Maybe having the word “pool” in thermal pool gives people the wrong idea?
I know that probably sounds silly, but I’m just trying to figure out a reason why people visiting Yellowstone National Park continue to ignore the warnings about the seriousness of the area’s thermal springs and thermal pools. Under no circumstance should someone walk out on the thermal features.
Yet here we have a guy making headlines for walking out on the bacterial mats of the Grand Prismatic spring.
It’s summer time at Yellowstone, which is just another way of saying that tourists are flocking to the national park in droves with the intention of both seeing nature’s beauty and going viral online for doing something absurdly dangerous and illegal. That usually comes in the form of tourists – also referred to as “tourons” – getting way too close to wildlife within the park.
For some reason, people that visit Yellowstone think that the place is a petting zoo. Videos of people walking right up to bison or elk at Yellowstone National Park hit the internet almost on a weekly basis. Especially during this time of the year. But this time around, instead of a tourist getting too close to a wild animal, we’ve got a video of a tourist that was evidently a) ill-informed and b) over confident.
The man that is going viral (and not in a good way) was caught on camera hopping off of Yellowstone’s boardwalks to pick up hats that had been lost out on the springs. Seems like a good deed on paper… until you read the safety portion of Yellowstone National Park’s website in regards to thermal areas.
They clearly state:
“Stay on boardwalks and trails in thermal areas. Hot springs have injured or killed more people in Yellowstone than any other natural feature. Keep your children close and don’t let them run.”
Notice how the national park addressed children, hoping that grown up adults would be smart enough to not venture out into the 174-degree thermal pools and springs.
Over 20 people have died after they entered or accidentally fell into the hot springs at Yellowstone National Park. There are signs everywhere that warn visitors not to get off the boardwalks or approach the hot springs, but that didn’t stop this idiotic Yellowstone visitor from trotting out on the springs in his flip flops.
Not only is it a bad thing to do for the man’s personal safety, what he was caught doing also harms the natural enviroment. The bacterial mats around the Grand Prismatic and elsewhere throughout the park house fragile living organisms. Called thermophiles, the delicate organisms are only able to survive in the heat of the thermal basin, and are incredibly sensitive when it comes to unnatural disturbances.
Such as… a man in his flip flops:
Yikes.
That just happened a few days ago, so there’s no word on whether Yellowstone National Park has been able to identify the man yet. It’ll likely only be a matter of time before they are able to do so, and walking on the thermal mats is considered to be “thermal trespassing,” and offenders can often get hit with extensive fines, park banishment, and sometimes even jail time.
