Criminal idiot parboiled at YNP

There are three sorts of people (here we go again ..Heh)
People who read signs and stay behind fences. They do not try to hug the bison to get a photo.
People who ignore some signs but have the skill and intelligence to manage hazards most of the time. These folks do know that some signs really are important tho, but that most don't say 'this means YOU!' on them and so don't apply.
People that always ignore signs no matter what and hug bisons and fall into boiling mudpots. These are folks that the Darwin Awards are meant for and who hopefully remove themselves from the breeding population before reproducing.

Not saying we should kill the idiots but let’ s take off all the warning signs and let nature take it’s course!

The above pic is beautiful , thanks for posting, it really makes me want to go on a trip.

So here is another example of the same issue -- this photo looks like DW is about to fall off the cliff:


Click For Full-Size Image.

This was taken at Dewey Point, above Yosemite Valley. We had snowshoed in from Badger Pass Ski Area, roughly a six mile round trip. DW is actually standing several feet from the edge, but the camera angle makes it look like she is right on the edge.

I think dedmiston's point is that if someone posts a picture like this, the poster ought to make it clear that insane risks are not really being taken. (Of course, if you are wearing one of those flying squirrel wing suits, the whole point is to document the insane risk.). ;)

Good point, dedmiston. When we posted this photo on our blog, the accompanying text made it clear that we were not disturbing the soil or taking undue risks. So it is good to make that explicit!!

profdant139 wrote:
You are exactly right -- those folks (me and DW!) are pretty far from the geyser -- maybe a hundred feet. (Zoom lens!) Before sitting down, we felt the ground with our hands to see if it was wet. Or too hot. It was dry and warm.

But I freely admit that standing (let's say) a hundred yards away would be safer. We were well aware of the risks (minimal but not zero). We wanted to get as close to this back-country geyser as we could while still staying safe.

The same is true of surfing, which we do all the time. There is a risk of shark attack. There is a risk of getting hit by a surfboard. There is a substantial risk of getting stung by a sting ray (which has happened to me the last two times we went to the beach). Risk is part of adventure travel.

We hike across snowfields, knowing that there is a risk of avalanche. If the slope is too steep, we don't cross it.

We swim in creeks in the Sierra -- we test the current first. But if we are wrong, and the current is too strong, we get swept away and drown.

We climb fairly steep granite domes, like Lembert Dome in Yosemite. The traction is good, but there is always a chance that your foot will slip and you will get hurt.

Some risks are not capable of being managed. Do we know that the person in line next to us at the grocery store does not have Covid? There is no way to know, so we minimize our contacts with the outside world.

So the issue is not "do you take risks?" It is "how do you behave in order to minimize risk while still living your life?"

Stepping off a boardwalk at Yellowstone is stupid. It's forbidden, too. Taking a risk without being able to evaluate its magnitude is a recipe for death. That's the key -- the saying is "look before you leap," not "never ever leap anything."

It's hard to tell from the picture that you're treading lightly, as the saying goes.

My family's high-risk pastime is off-road motorsports and we're very sensitive about being good stewards of our public lands and also not doing anything (like posting ambiguous pics) that would cast our already-unpopular group in a bad light. Perception is everything and it only takes a few perceived bad acts to wreck it for everyone else.

We swim in creeks in the Sierra -- we test the current first. But if we are wrong, and the current is too strong, we get swept away and drown.

We climb fairly steep granite domes, like Lembert Dome in Yosemite. The traction is good, but there is always a chance that your foot will slip and you will get hurt.

Some risks are not capable of being managed.

Quite right we've been up Lembert, great view of Touloumne. And we've sat on the edge of thousand foot cliffs. But we don't behave stupidly when doing it. In my younger days I was a technical rock climber in Yosemite and other places, my son is a climber right now. If you take the time to learn and manage risks then you minimize them.



But morons don't and I have no sympathy for them. For example I was told by a ranger that Yosemite loses a number of fools every year when they go for a swim in a mountain stream up around Glacier point only to find themselves washed over the top of a 600 foot waterfall. And they lost more climbing cliffs using cloths line as their rope (that's something you don't see anymore}. Plus those who went cross country skiing only to find that you can ski 15 miles but when you break a ski you cannot walk back 15 miles in the deep snow.

profdant139 wrote:
There are many parts of the park where there are geysers with no boardwalk, no fence, no ranger, nobody around for miles. You are on your own. Make a mistake and you die.

And if you test the crust very carefully, you can sit right near your own private geyser and feel the warmth of the earth on your backside -- a very strange feeling on a chilly autumn day:


Click For Full-Size Image.

Having been to YS 9 times, I don't have an issue with this pic. There are many places in and outside of the park where this can be done. If your an outside/woods person you know what to look for and have the experience to judge the ground. If you live in the city/suburbs you don't
(most likely) To each his own.

You are exactly right -- those folks (me and DW!) are pretty far from the geyser -- maybe a hundred feet. (Zoom lens!) Before sitting down, we felt the ground with our hands to see if it was wet. Or too hot. It was dry and warm.

But I freely admit that standing (let's say) a hundred yards away would be safer. We were well aware of the risks (minimal but not zero). We wanted to get as close to this back-country geyser as we could while still staying safe.

The same is true of surfing, which we do all the time. There is a risk of shark attack. There is a risk of getting hit by a surfboard. There is a substantial risk of getting stung by a sting ray (which has happened to me the last two times we went to the beach). Risk is part of adventure travel.

We hike across snowfields, knowing that there is a risk of avalanche. If the slope is too steep, we don't cross it.

We swim in creeks in the Sierra -- we test the current first. But if we are wrong, and the current is too strong, we get swept away and drown.

We climb fairly steep granite domes, like Lembert Dome in Yosemite. The traction is good, but there is always a chance that your foot will slip and you will get hurt.

Some risks are not capable of being managed. Do we know that the person in line next to us at the grocery store does not have Covid? There is no way to know, so we minimize our contacts with the outside world.

So the issue is not "do you take risks?" It is "how do you behave in order to minimize risk while still living your life?"

Stepping off a boardwalk at Yellowstone is stupid. It's forbidden, too. Taking a risk without being able to evaluate its magnitude is a recipe for death. That's the key -- the saying is "look before you leap," not "never ever leap anything."

As a photographer I can say that you cannot judge how close to the hot water those folks really are. With a long lens they could be 50 feet away since telephotos 'compress' the image. Just looking at it carefully they do not seem to be very close.