I'd been looking at my feet while peeing so I watched the billows blow by and then heard another big whoosh noise. My first thought was there must be some kind of little geyser around so I looked to find the source of the steam and saw it wasn't a geyser, it was a giant bull moose not more than 20 from me and it was snorting at me and basically telling me it was about ready to kill me.
Pretty much every year we hear about someone getting killed by bears there. I have spent many nights in many national forests and bushwhacked many miles off trail in them, but not Yellowstone. I'll leave that to the bears and those giant freaking moose.
But maybe you can drive right into Old Faithful; I’ve never been.
The Grand Canyon is my favorite example. The rim by the visitor center can be packed but once you're a half mile down one of the trails you won't see a soul.
Technically, it's about 600 ft. from the parking lot, but half of that is the distance from the viewing area to the geyser (you never actually walk right up to the geysers, you always want to see them from a bit of a distance).
From what I remember of Yellowstone (it has been two decades since I visited), it's a national park where pretty much everything is pretty damn close to roadside, as the roads are designed to take you by all the interesting things.
For those who naturally wander, it can be hard to understand. But a lot of visitors barely leave parking lots and pull-outs. I don't know about 95%, but I've definitely noticed this at my favorite California parks.
The road-bound will take pictures at the scenic viewpoint on the shoulder of the road and at various entrance signs, and maybe use the restrooms. Then they pile back into the car to go to the next pull-out, restaurant, or hotel parking lot on their itinerary...
I don't believe it and I certainly wouldn't encourage people to form opinions on national park policies based on it.
While many people with disabilities can’t go very far beyond their car, they represent a minority of visitors. The vast majority of visitors are people who are theoretically physically capable of walking further but just choose not to.
I don’t get it, but it does make the experience for those of us who are prepared to walk a whole lot nicer!
I don't know that I'd want to encourage people with little experience in the actual wilderness and not enough interest to read up first to go too far in any case. That's the group that contains the people who think petting the bison is a good idea or who never considered that their cell phone might not work everywhere.
More tourists getting killed just ends up making things worse for everyone, esp the people who get killed.