The Embarrassing History of Crap Thrown into Yellowstone’s Geysers
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I've never felt like such a jerk as when I blazed into a national park alongside dozens of other yahoos atop our loud, polluting machines spewing exhaust everywhere. Our group, from one rental company, would periodically cross paths with groups from other companies, so who knows how many of us there actually were.
At one point en elk or moose or such was near the road, and it was immediately surrounded by ten or so snowmobiles, each trying to see how close they could get before taking a photo.
I looked it up at the time and I think the Clinton administration tried to curtail the snowmobile invasion, only to face such opposition from operators that they gave up.
This is why we can't have nice things, I guess.
We loved that tour, but there was one rather sad story our guide told us. Before the more recent, stricter rules on snowmobiles went into effect, people would take whatever cheap snowmobile they could get their hands on into the park. Of course, the cheaper the bike, the cheaper the engine, which meant most all the snowmobiles used very inefficient, and very dirty two stroke engines. Just imagine the exhaust from a gas powered lawn mower or chainsaw, magnified several times.
In winter, there's a phenomenon called an atmospheric inversion caused by the cooler air of the season. The inversion stops all vertical movement of the air, so exhaust from snowmobiles, instead of dissipating, collects and lingers near the ground.
Our tour guide is telling us this because during the peak of the winter seasons in the park, the rangers manning the entrances would often complain about the air quality. The entrances were particularly problematic because so many vehicles would be stopped there waiting to get into the park. Any time an inversion hit, all those fumes would get trapped.
Nothing was ever done about this until, one day, a park ranger passed out and died. He was a friend of our tour guide. This finally pushed them to add an air quality measurement station to the park entrance. Not too long after that, they started cracking down on snowmobiles.
Nowadays, only low-emission and low-noise snowmobiles are allowed into the park.
I have no idea if the story is true or not. But it's sad to think a park ranger had to die for such an obvious problem to get solved.
There are other sad stories about how we've managed Yellowstone. But it's a beautiful park, and it makes me so happy that, even if we goof sometimes, at least we are smart enough to put that land aside for generations to enjoy.
So, by accident of circumstance, I ventured through the park the low-carbon way, without the RV, snowmobile, hunting rifle, BBQ, plastic chairs or anything else. I was amazed the park had dual carriageways with overpasses for the traffic. I found my time in the park to be slightly frustrating and the time in the greater area more satisfying. The hordes of RV tourists and their eagerness to photo anything that moved was probably the thing that made it not so fun to be in the park.
I should say that bicycle + Yellowstone is a very good option as you can camp anywhere in the National Park campgrounds with no expectation to book. The RV people have to book aeons in advance and can't just casually turn up before dusk to get a pitch.
I am sure that cyclists annoy motorists on the park roads, it is apparent that you are annoying others - queue of traffic behind says that. But I am not sure motorists are aware that they might be a 'yahoo' of sorts. I am not sure that being a 'yahoo' is actually that wrong, perhaps it is the regular RV that is more insidious, as there the RV owner has taken everything to the park that cyclist types like myself have gone to the park to escape! TVs, motors, outside music - all nice things but nuisance and unnecessary too.
Obviously the park should be closed to all traffic that emits emissions, to make the place a nice drive for Tesla owners and cyclists. Then we could have lots of people driving their ICE car to the park to then hire some electric transportation. That would be better income for the snowmobile operator types.
Fun fact: lots of states have something like "if there's more than X cars following you you should pull over and let them pass" in their driver's manuals and driver's ed programs.
>to make the place a nice drive for Tesla owners and cyclists
So basically rich people and a few non-rich people who are really dedicated to cycling. That seems to be a pretty much direct contradiction with the purpose of the national parks.
Let's build those motorways up to the geysers and up to those mountain tops and maybe straight to the bottom of the Grand Canyon too! It is only fair if every person is to be able to get there.
In the 'ban ICE vehicles' model you could walk or go on horseback. However, logistically a bicycle would make the most sense due to miles covered per calorie.
Poor people have no more rights than rich people to trash the planet with their vehicle emissions. These people that are 'really dedicated to their motoring' do not have a clue about how their actions deny the road to others, e.g. those that would cycle if they were not scared of motorists.
Now if there were bus services (non ICE!) in National Parks then everyone would be able to get around, right? But public transport is an insult to American values.
National parks (at least in the US) have a semi-contradictory purpose of preserving the land for future generations and provide for the enjoyment of the same. Yellowstone is a very crowded park, but the good news is that it's only the "big landmarks" that tend to be this way; most of Yellowstone is not directly accessible by road. All of the day hikes my wife and I did (eg Fairy Falls, Mount Washburn, etc.) were not terribly crowded at all. I can imagine backpackers actually getting some serious solitude.
I don't see a need to go as drastic as "ban all ICE vehicles" because keeping some things very accessible fits the public interest of enjoyment. It would be interesting to explore the idea of more cycling paths in parks, because cyclists are relatively low impact, and my perception of Yellowstone was that the number of long cycling-friendly trails was fairly low.
I don't even do motor-sports but your puritan, uncompromising, sierra-clubish view of how public land ought to be used is exactly why there isn't overwhelming support for public resources like that.
>only to face such opposition from operators that they gave up.
Having opposition means just about nothing. There's a bunch of pissed off idiots on both sides of any issue.
Some of it is unexpected - for example, caps and water bottles being blown off of people's heads or off of handrails into Mammoth Hot Springs - but some of it is just plain stupid (for example, crowds of people encircling a bear to take photographs or people walking up to the elk to pet them.)
All of this happens despite the presence of park personnel continuously walking through all of the areas that have been turned into exhibits, and despite everyone having at least a cell phone camera to take photographs from a safe, non-polluting distance.
There are in addition many more incidents that don't get covered beyond the local paper: Bison gorings, people falling off cliffs, a guy got trampled by a moose. A little outside the park, but a local guy got electrocuted by a bear that had itself been electrocuted by a fallen power pole. A party of school girls were "pinned down" for several hours by a black bear. It's endless. These are just the incidents I recall off the top of my head, besides the nationally reported stuff like Canadians traipsing through Grand Prismatic Spring and various people beinv eaten by bears.
Also check out the videos of park and fish+game staff using explosives to dispose of moose carcases in the field.
I was wondering the backstory behind this sign, and apparently someone actually did this.
"What started out as an apparently well-intentioned move by tourists who placed a young bison in the back of their vehicle because they believed it looked cold, has ended in no small sadness.
On Monday, officials at Yellowstone National Park revealed that the calf had to be put down after being rejected by its herd."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/yellowstone...
Another one I remembered since posting the list above was the tourists who broke several toilets in the park due to standing on the seats. There are now signs, some in Chinese, in the park's public toilets advising not to stand on them..
Source: http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/environmental/when-east-m...
Amusingly, one of my early memories of newspaper reading was that a lady had won a lawsuit for breaking her ankle that way (yes, in the US, why do you ask? ;-)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/2...
Happened at least 5 times in 2015:
http://www.yellowstonepark.com/teen-gored-bison/
Apparently they hit you when you turn your back to them and they will toss you in the air. Sometimes more than once.
> On June 2, an Australian man was taking photos within five feet of a 2,000-pound bison in the same area when the bull suddenly charged him, hooking him with its horns and tossing him into the air several times. Incredibly, the man lived.
Not surprised people ignore the warnings about staying back 25 meters. At Algonquin park in Ontario, Canada we came across a giant male moose and everyone was staying well back. Then a Chinese tourist family walked right up to it within a few feet to take a photo. A man attempted yelling at them to stay back but they ignored the warning. Nothing happened but it really bothered me, mostly because they entirely disrespected the animal.
http://www.ktvh.com/2017/01/men-sentenced-for-walking-on-gra...
Links, for those interested:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1570984506/
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=U5uLAgAAQBAJ
Interview with the author: http://www.yellowstonepark.com/unnatural-deaths-yellowstone-...
It's one thing to take a calculated risk and die because the gamble didn't pay off or you made some error in your risk calculus. It's quite another to just ignore the clearest possible warnings that something is a Bad Idea That Will Kill You. I don't really feel any sympathy in the latter case.
Why can't we extend that sympathy to adults who also might not been fully aware of the consequences as well?
... as does "play stupid games, win stupid prizes".
Death for someone attempting to seek escape and joy in their life seems like an excessive punishment - mockery isn't necessary.
I feel terrible for what happened in this instance, but there have been a handful of moments in my life where looking back I suppose they could of also ended similarly. Don't regret them in the slightest though - they enriched my entire life.
It was only a few weeks ago people were celebrating Amazon's philosophy of if a mistake is made, it's never the individuals fault it's the systems fault. Could we not also perhaps apply this philosophy to safety notices/warnings/education in this tragedy?
Sure. But part of the reason for that is that those actions are risks.
> seems like an excessive punishment
I didn't see any kind of punishment in the story. I saw a consequence for an action. He didn't die because he broke the rules. He died because he made a fatal mistake by slipping into a hot, acidic pool.
> I feel terrible for what happened in this instance
I feel sorry for the people that he hurt as an indirect result of his actions, but not for the guy himself.
> it's never the individuals fault it's the systems fault. Could we not also perhaps apply this philosophy to safety notices/warnings/education in this tragedy?
I strongly disagree with Amazon's philosophy, in that case. From what I've heard, there are many, many posted warnings, marked trails, and rangers patrolling to educate people. The park's almost 9,000 km^2. At some point, you've got to consider that a best effort was made to provide guidance for safety, and anything that happens as a result of going against that guidance is on whoever did it. He died because he did something stupid, not because the signs/rangers/trails/his 2nd grade teacher didn't stop him.
It has been established in court that the National Parks System is not required to make National Parks safe (families of dead tourists suing for more fences and safety rails and so on) because an intrinsic part of the value of the parks is exposure to nature without a glass wall in front of it. A few people dying horribly is a price the rest of us are willing to pay for that value.
I agree. But some people lack the ability to judge the risk/reward ratio. For those people, we have signs--which unfortunately treats all risky behaviour the same.
> Could we not also perhaps apply this philosophy to safety notices/warnings/education in this tragedy?
There's a whole industry for that. For example, GM/Ford have dashboard cutouts they use for trials against them. They are example dashboards with warnings for every single thing their lawyers could think of. At some point, users just ignore the warnings. Some users never look at any. You can't get everyone to cooperate, accidents are going to happen. The point at which users ignore warnings, or how they respond to them in general are being actively studied.
Wholeheartedly agreed, but getting close to an acidic geyser is way beyond "a little risky".
This isn't a complex sociopolitical scene like an underclass of drug-users trying to escape from their hellish reality, where cause and effect are hard to disentangle. It's people on holiday assuming that they're special and the safety signage doesn't apply to them. It's pretty straight-forward.
I am not sure how far I would take that line of thought, but I do think there's something to it.
Soaking is a great idea if done carefully. There are several places in YNP where it is allowed, officially or semi-officially.
In fact, every time I visit Yellowstone NP (like 5 times a year) it strikes me how silly it is that people are kept and are happy to stay on boardwalks and paved roads. They might just as well watch the BBC documentary and save everyone the trouble. If you are outdoors you should hike, swim, wade and sense the warm thermal waters. YNP is the most regulated and civilized park I know. I think this is sad.
Driving to Yellowstone on an interstate is probably more dangerous anyway.
Allowing millions of tourists from around the world, many without any respect or knowledge of how to conduct themselves in the wild in such a way as to leave minimal impact, would lead to a rapid and permanent destruction of the very park features that make the area worthy of preservation and visiting.
Your perspective on things doesn't work in a world with 7+ billion people who are increasingly able to travel to popular destinations. The trail and boardwalk restrictions in the park make it possible for all visitors to enjoy park features in perpetuity rather than all features being destroyed by a single selfish generation.
For another, it promotes a sense of shared identity of rule-followers, by criticizing people who break rules, which promotes pride in following rules and prevents people from breaking them. This is important because when I read a sign telling me to do something it is necessary that I trust the person who wrote the sign if I am to obey.
But like all forms of humorous entertainment it is not as amusing when we deliberate on it for too long. And there is a pernicious feedback effect of callousness which can arise from the sense of collective identity mentioned in the second paragraph. The positive effects of such activities seem to be best utilized when many cultural mores are practiced together to smooth out the "errors".
Better?
It improves their self being because they can imagine in their heads using hindsight and a loaded story they would never be that stupid.
AKA Darwin awards.
Hopefully at some stage culture can wipe out the attitude and replace it with something better then using they deaths of the uneducated poor and mental ill for our betterment.
The person in that story was not mentally ill, beyond being stupid and refusing to heed plainly obvious warnings, and there's no evidence he was uneducated.
There's a difference. There's nothing noble or innocent about being selfish and stubborn and refusing to heed warnings meant to keep people safe who aren't familiar with the serious dangers in a place like Yellowstone.
Are you saying that people deliberately choose to be "selfish and stubborn" to the point of getting killed, and yet this is not a form of mental illness?
While I cannot resist wondering about the possibility of proposing in front of a pink Geysir ... still ... what the f4k is wrong with people?
[0] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3055145/Chilean-arti...
He was ultimately acquitted on a technicality: http://icelandreview.com/news/2016/07/06/pink-geyser-project...
Some valid points were raised in the man's defense (e.g. the food coloring dissipated fairly quickly) though I can't say I approve.
On a side note, it seems any mention of the controversy has been scrubbed from his Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Evaristti
I was in Iceland in 2000 (ish) and the original was occasionally doing its thing then, but not well
Ever noticed the nice Gaussian distribution of people at a beach? There's a huge number of people close to the path from the parking lot, but the number of people drops off steeply with each step you take away from the entrance.
You'll find this elsewhere: I personally avoid national and CA state parks because they are crowded and pretty much ban dogs (a rule I support even though it keeps me out of them too). Wilderness areas, which are much less developed, or not developed at all, require a little bit of walking so are usually empty, and again, the farther you go from the parking lot the exponentially lower probability you have of encountering another person (or litter etc).
This is true of hunting season too (in CA): you see hunters in their cars parked by the side of the road, but hike in even a mile and you can't even hear a bang. (On the other hand in Minnesota I saw people out with their sled dogs all over the place).
PS: on the dog thing: a poorly trained dog can really upset the wildlife, and even a well trained dog that sticks next to you will affect the fauna. I always camp with a dog, but I am aware of how it affects my ability to Leave No Trace.
first one with excellent cameramanship https://youtu.be/WKoXUIJBC-4