NCWriter wrote:
dwayneb236 wrote:
I've read the book Death In Yellowstone. If and when I ever go I will NEVER leave the boardwalks. Over some of those thermals the crust is very thin.
From what I read in the book due to the altitude of Yellowstone the boiling point for the water is around 198 or something like that. So 200 is pretty darn hot.
I read that, too - pretty scary stuff. And while we were there I saw a woman ignore all the signs, hop in and frolick around in the river where there was runoff from a very active thermal feature, as if it was her personal hot tub. Didn't stick around to watch the next step in the drama (get in trouble and expect the Rangers to rush to rescue). All the signs in the world can't stop idiots.
It's been a lot of years now since they stopped it, but it used to be very common to swim in the river by the thermal features or where the runoff went into the river with there often being several dozen folks in the water at once. As I recall the practice was stopped because of bacteria or some other bug rather than concern about burns.
