Even the human heard needs to be culled and Yellowstone affords an opportunity to do just that. In the modern world the weak and the dumb are often preserved and protected from natural selection to the detriment of us all. I feel sorry for this man’s sister and family, but I’ve been to these hot springs and the need to stay on the walkways could not be more obvious.
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Headline: Gruesome Hot Spring Death Highlights Problems At Yellowstone
There is no problems at all with Yellowstone save for too many navel gazing self absorbed people are too fucking stupid to even be breathing.
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He was a very nice young man . . . . .who got himself killed. Tragic, but hardly the fault of the Park.
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Sorry for the family’s loss. That being said, you just can’t fix stupid. Even my own son, who went to see a volcano up close in Guatemala, figured he should probably leave once his sneakers started to melt. I shake my head to this day.
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Anybody who spends time doing outdoors stuff can tell you stories similar to this, but national parks seem to have a special attraction for people who ignore clearly posted risks. People will put their young children on the famous wild ponies at Chincoteague right the hell next to a sign that says “Wild ponies kick and bite do not etc…” They’ll play around with dumpster bears, teasing them and so forth. Yellowstone is the worst, though. Bison and elk are big, dangerous animals, but people treat them like it’s a petting zoo. This young guy’s death was unfortunate and rather grisly but I’m absolutely sure he walked past three or four warning signs on his way to it.
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When I worked at Grand Canyon N.P. many years ago, it was people falling off cliffs. Six to 7 a year. Mostly, the deaths were the consequence of person’s going beyond the barriers at view sites to get a better picture. The bodies didn’t dissolve though. Grusesome indeed.
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Some people think Yellowstone is just an amusement park like Disneyland. I’ve witnessed a dad hold his toddler up in the face of a bull elk. I assume the dad thought the elk was tame but it was mid August which is rutting season… A park helicopter arrived and a loud sound system broadcast “Bull elk have been known to kill grizzly bears. We suggest you move away… slowly”
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Damnation. They weren’t overselling the “acidic spring” part of the description.
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Our family has visited Yellowstone many, many times and there are myriad risks. It’s something you’ve got to respect and you’ve got to pay attention to the dangers. Yet despite the park service’s warnings people will do what they want to do and they take very stupid and dangerous risks. Every time we go to any number of the canyon parks (Grand Canyon, Canyonlands, Bryce…etc.) we invariably see people disregard warnings, climb over barriers and go out on cliffs and dangerous peaks clearly taking risks (I believe about 6+ people die each year in the Grand Canyon from recklessly disregarding warnings. They fall; they die.)
Yellowstone’s an unbelievably beautiful place, but it’s also a very dangerous place, especially to those who behave carelessly or recklessly. Anyone who pays attention to warnings and stays on the boardwalks, should be just fine. The only way to make a national park completely safe for people is to wall them off and deny people entrance to them. The “problems at Yellowstone” are the people ignoring the clear dangers.
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Ralph, I’ve seen plenty of foolish behaviors at Grand Canyon N.P. The Park Service does a decent job trying to explain the dangers there but there are some folks who are just heedless of what is around them.
You are right. Gruesome indeed.
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Poor choice of a headline for this article. Death’s occur, and will continue to occur at Yellowstone without there being a “problem”. When you consider the statistics of millions of visitors at the park each year, some whom are rarely out in nature, its obvious that some people will die. Some from car accidents, some from health issues related to elevation, and some, who refuse to follow the well-signed and numerous warnings, from animal altercations or by falling in a hot spring. We are so fortunate to have this park in our backyard. When people visit the park they need to follow just a few basic guidelines and they will be safe as is possible while out in nature and will enjoy some spectacular sites.
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Yes, 22 people in 126 years is a stretch to label it “Problems At Yellowstone”. Having visited Yellowstone several times myself, I would not like to see a lot more protective measures to prevent stupid people (this goes beyond ignorant) from harming themselves. Yes, this is a sad loss of life, but there already are plenty of warnings about animals and the hot springs. He should have known better than leaving the walkways, which already get you quite close to the hot springs. And it is abundantly obvious that the area is very hot and very dangerous.
But it would be interesting to see a national park where the animals roam free while the humans are fenced in.
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Indeed! We’ve take many trips to Yellowstone and each time encounter visitors who seem to have the mindset that the animals “must be tame or they wouldn’t let them this close to us.” One sad illustration came during a visit in 2013 when a woman encouraged her husband to take their toddler and let her photograph them near a bull bison. The bison charged and trampled both. They barely survived and only after a crowd managed to scare the animal away.
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I was in Yellowstone some years back and accidentally dropped my camera into one of the hot springs near the lodge. I turned to my husband, thinking, “What to do? Find a ranger to report it, so they can fetch it out?” Suddenly a total stranger plunged his hand into the water, grabbed the camera, and pulled it out.
I was shocked. It was a camera. None of us knew how hot that water was or any other danger. Imagine if it had been scalding hot or acid and that man forfeited his hand for the now utterly worthless camera of a stranger.
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No, it highlights the stupidity of the American tourist.
God but people are idiots.
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…Problems At Yellowstone
…Problems With People Who Visit Yellowstone. FIFY
I have quite literally watched Yellowstone rangers say to visitors.“Ma’am, please do not put your child on the bison!” People frequently sneak off trail/boardwalk to touch the whatever.
If you plan to visit, an interesting read is Death in Yellowstone, a chronicle of “unnatural” deaths in Yellowstone through the years, written by a Yellowstone’s historian.
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Wow.
In the 1970’s I stopped at “Old Faithful” to see the geyser. When I was leaving there was a bison in the parking lot somewhat away from me. As I drove away he took off after my car and chased it a short distance. That was enough to make me VERY aware of my surroundings. I knew beforehand but that incident reinforced it quite nicely.
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They did survive. A crowd began shouting and the bison bolted off. It does highlight the incredible recklessness and dimwitted behavior displayed by many tourists in these magnificent parks.
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The Park Service’s primary purpose is conservation. But the enabling legislation also speaks about providing for public enjoyment. This dual purpose creates a management tension. In the past, the public enjoyment bit was overly stressed and parks were treated as if they were zoos, viz. the bear pits at Yellowstone in the old days, and amusement parks. Several pieces of legislation and influential critics gradually returned the NPS to primarily an agency for conservation and wilderness preservation. But the tension remains. And National Parks are dangerous places and people must accept an element of risk - there are court cases - when entering. The exception is when there is an explicit or implicit invitation. “Come visit our historic (unsecured) abandoned mine”, for example. That’s another story from my days at Death Valley.
There’s a book, “Mountains Without Handrails” out of print now, I’ll bet, that documents the history of this dual use tension.
Edit. Available here courtesy of NPS. Takes you up to 1980. After that, check out the court case NRA vs Potter (1985) for the first time the NPS’s role was reviewed by the courts.
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/sax/contents.htm
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Young men take risks. If it wasn’t for that, we’d still be in caves. Let’s hope the ‘do gooders’ don’t over react.
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